When you take a step back and look at the situation, it is sad and almost funny how the FFB manipulators have managed to “wheel and turn”, “haul and pull”, and generally make a mockery of Belizean football, while they go on their merry way towards delaying the December 10 FIFA mandated elections by all of 3 months.
As recently as last Friday, November 4, the FIFA President was announcing to the world the dramatic changes to take place by December. But FFB will have none of that. In Belize, Bertie is boss; not Blatter, and not the Minister of Sports.
In the last paragraph of his address to “… readers of insideworldfootball”, dated Friday, November 4, 2011, FIFA President Joseph Sepp Blatter stated: “FIFA remains committed to walking the walk and won’t get stuck in solely talking the talk. By December, this will become clear for all to see. Until then, I invite everybody to bear with us so that we can clean house and come back to the public with facts that allow FIFA to enter a new decade of doing business. And never again revert to doing “business as usual”.”
Sorry, Mr. Blatter, that doesn’t apply to Belize’s FFB. You will have to wait until March, 2012.
For those not up to date with the FFB games, FIFA agreed to lift its suspension of Belize when its Road Map was agreed to in Belize on August 2 after meetings between representatives of FIFA, the FFB and the Belize Ministry of Sports. (BPFL and Super League delegates were not allowed in the meeting.)
Following is an excerpt from the Government of Belize press release on August 2:
“The Roadmap proposes the finalization, within the next two days, of a draft FIFA approved statutes and a FIFA approved electoral code to be worked out by the delegation and the FFB. The FFB is to organise an Extraordinary Congress before the end of September 2011 in order to 1) approve the new FIFA confirmed statutes; 2) approve the new FIFA confirmed electoral codes; and 3) elect an Electoral Commission and an Electoral Appeal Commission.
“It also states that the FFB must organise new elections – managed by the newly elected Electoral Commission – before 10 December, 2011 (underlining ours). In the meantime, the Electoral Commission will ensure that the FFB members have elections in every district branch before FFB’s elections, in order to ensure transparency and proper representation during the FFB Executive elections. The process will be closely monitored by FIFA. One of the points to be worked out will be the process to be followed in the election of the members of the FFB….” That last bit about “the process to be followed” has given the FFB the opening it needs to manipulate the procedure leading to the “election of the members”, who will later on vote for the new FFB Executive. (See “BDFA Extraordinary Congress on elections” elsewhere in this issue.)
We don’t know how closely the process is being monitored by FIFA. But just last week, football spirits were dampened when a joint FFB-Ministry of Sports press release announced that, “FIFA, the Football Federation of Belize (FFB) and the Ministry of Sports, after much discussion and consideration, have agreed to extend the present deadlines contained in the ‘FIFA Roadmap to solve the current crisis in Belize football’… . As a result, the deadline for the election of the FFB executive committee has been extended to March 10, 2012.” Again, this decision was made without the involvement of BPFL and Super League delegates.
It is not as if there is any mystery as to what constitutes “the current crisis in Belize football”. Football people countrywide are fed up with the present FFB leaders and want them replaced a.s.a.p. December 10 was already a long wait. Now, after much foot dragging and time wasting, the FFB has succeeded in getting the FIFA mandated deadline erased. The FIFA Road Map agreement stated “that the FFB must organise new elections – managed by the newly elected Electoral Commission – before 10 December, 2011.” So far, no one has heard a word from the Electoral Commission. And now the date in the distance is March 10, 2012, when the country will be focusing on municipal elections. Is someone moving the goal posts again?