We need a football summit, guys. We can’t continue into 2009 the same way we went through 2008.
We started the year in shame; we repeated the disgrace in mid-year; and then ended the year in a distasteful controversy. First, our national football team played its “home” game in Guatemala on February 6; then our national football champions played their “home” game in Guatemala on September 3; and, finally, our FFB/BPFL national playoffs were marked by gross inconsistencies and remain steeped in controversy.
Early in 2008, we all patted ourselves on the back, because our nation’s wonderful democracy worked; our unpopular leaders respected the will of the people, and allowed the electoral process to remove them from power. For that, with all their transgressions, and there have been many, I say, respect to former Prime Minister Hon. Said Musa.
The voters in his Fort George constituency still voted to return Mr. Musa to the House of Representatives. That is our democracy at work. If there is criminal wrongdoing revealed, the guilty will be held accountable. At least that is how our system should work.
But in football, there is no constituency in any part of Belize, save a few selected self-serving individuals, who would support the present FFB executive in a “fair” and democratic election.
Belizean football fans, you sit and lament the terrible state of football, and many of you vow not to go back to any football games. And some of you blame football players and clubs for only complaining and criticizing the FFB leadership, and then turn around and vote them back into office.
That is unfair to footballers and football clubs. And it is grossly misguided and inaccurate.
You all say our youths should stop the violence, and “increase the peace” in the streets. Yet, you are now in effect asking that footballers and football clubs get violent, to change the FFB leadership. That is what you are asking for, when you criticize them for allowing the FFB leadership to “win another election” in 2007 and remain in power until 2011.
That is terribly unfair and misguided of you. The FFB used “force” – uniformed policemen and private security guards to physically stop footballers and football clubs from exercising their right to vote in the elections. The situation did not get violent, because footballers and football clubs did not want to get violent.
The President of the FFB remained the President of the FFB, because he was prepared to use force, and risk a violent confrontation, to ensure his re-election. If Mr. Musa had done the same, he would still be Prime Minister today; or perhaps our little Belize would be steeped in bloodshed. Is that what we want from our footballers?
2009 is almost here. And Belizean football is still striving to gain respect in the region. Some U-20 youths represented our nation in the CONCACAF U-20 tournament, but we don’t even know who our players were. The same with the U-17; we only saw the results on the CONCACAF website. In a few weeks’ time, our national “A” team is supposed to represent Belize in the UNCAF Nations Cup; but we don’t know anything about our national team. On the schedule we are to meet Honduras on January 22. This abominable national ignorance about our country’s representation abroad continues, courtesy of the FFB. And our Government allows it.
The next time our national honor is injured in the international football arena, don’t you resort to blaming our footballers or football clubs, for continuing to “support” the same FFB leadership that presides over our continued failures. Point your finger where it belongs – at our political leaders, who were satisfied to benefit from “free and fair elections” but can see no value in ensuring that the football community also choose their leaders in “free and fair elections”.