Adrian Frater | JFF seems to be missing the plot

It would appear that one of the great fears many local football fans had when Michael Ricketts was elevated to the presidency of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) could be coming true. From all indications, it would appear that the federation has no meaningful plans to move our football forward.

While president Ricketts is seemingly allowing himself to be dragged into giving credence to nonsense issues such as retired track star Usain Bolt popping up on the national football radar, national coach Theodore 'Tappa' Whitmore is seemingly getting more frustrated each day with the lack of support for the national senior programme.

In fact, in looking at the current lack of activity within the JFF, it would appear that Craig Butler, whom I have criticised many times in the defence of the national programme, might have well been assessing the state of our football quite correctly when he was intimating that despite all its potential, our football is on a path to nowhere constructive.

In listening to some recent interviews with some of our outstanding Reggae Boyz of the past, there is absolutely no doubt that they, too, are not pleased with our football, especially the standard of our primary club competition, the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL), which is dominated by Kingston and St Andrew-based teams and in many respects, is of a similar standard to some business house competitions.

During the campaign to install Ricketts as JFF boss following the death of Captain Horace Burrell, I was one of the persons who was willing to turn a blind eye to him not articulating a clear plan for his administration. Like many rural football fans, I am wary of having a Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) man leading national football because of association history of not being fair to rural Jamaica.

However, after seeing the many glaring flaws in the current administration, I am now prepared to confess that what I was hoping for has turned out to be a pipe dream. So far, I have not seen anything to suggest that rural football will be better off under this administration than it would if a KSAFA man were in charge.

In fact, it is getting easier each day to realise why an ardent football lover like Orville Powell, who has invested millions in Montego Bay United, has become so frustrated that he has decided to walk away from the sport. Surely, there is absolutely nothing in the existing structure of our football to suggest that anything meaningful will emerge to professionalise our football.

While I like the rumblings that are coming out of new RSPL outfit Mount Pleasant Academy, where millions of dollars are being spent to create a football product worthy of talking about, I am nonetheless quite fearful that like Powell, the principal at the St Ann-based outfit will soon become frustrated by the JFF's lack of ambition, vision and direction.

As I have been doing in many of my recent columns, I am again pleading with the rural administrators, who are empowered by the constitution of the federation to call the shots, to wake up from their slumber and restart the work that the likes of Anthony James, Frank 'Bim' Williams, Wesmore Thomas and Lincoln 'Happy' Sutherland pioneered in the 1980s.

This current 'chaka-chaka' approach is self-destructive because while we have a number of capable players between here in Jamaica, the United States and England, we are steadily losing ground, in terms of creating credible programmes, to our English-speaking Caribbean neighbours, who were like chalk to cheese to us when we qualified for France '98.

I want to make it quite clear that I am not lashing the JFF because I have a personal vendetta against the federation. it is too painful to watch other small nations emerging as credible forces on the global stage while we are here acting

the fools instead of creating a product that can transform our footballers into global stars.