The Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) has scheduled a meeting with its parent body, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), to derive a solution that facilitates the resumption of its competitions.
"There is a meeting that is set up for this Friday between KSAFA and the JFF and we hope that something will be worked out," KSAFA's president, Rudolph Speid, said.

Yesterday, KSAFA suspended all its competitions indefinitely because of a JFF mandate on Monday for all referees (islandwide) to wear gear branded by telecommunications provider Digicel only under a three-year sponsorship deal which was signed with the federation in September last year.

Another telecommunications competitor, Claro, sponsors the KSAFA leagues and referees group, which includes gear with their branded logo.

Total sponsorship for both competitions is in excess of $100 million.

Implications for competitions

The suspension, Speid explained, has affected a number of the KSAFA's competitions, including their second-tier Major and third-teir Syd Bartlett leagues; and its Under-20 male and female and Under-17 competitions.

The suspension also has implications for KSAFA's Under-15 and Under-13 leagues, which were scheduled to start of later this month.

"We want to place emphasis that this is our youth programme, which is very key in the development of players, especially for national age-group representation and as such the JFF needs to let us know what is happening," noted Speid, who pointed out that towards the latter stages of the Flow Champions Cup, the JFF allowed referees to wear non-branded shirts.

"We are not unreasonable as we are trying to promote the sport in any way. What we are saying is that referees can carry out their duties in any shirt, branded or not branded, as long as it is not a competing brand with our sponsors. We would prefer to have Claro on the shirts, since Claro is paying the referees salaries, but we are willing to compromise," Speid pointed out.

The JFF, through a release issued late yesterday afternoon, says this latest action was due to concerns raised by Digicel.

Pointing to the dictates of FIFA, the world governing body for football, the JFF made it clear in the release that they are "responsible for all referees in Jamaica and all referees are licensed to the JFF".

The release added: "In July 2008, the JFF board of directors (BoD) at its meeting directed the chairman of its referees committee to secure funding for the welfare of the referees. Based on that directive, a three-year contract worth $6.5m was signed in September 2008 with Digicel to cover training and development of referees, including provision of uniforms. Again, this was communicated to all affiliates of the JFF.

"The JFF received news in November 2008 via an announcement that KSAFA had secured telecommunications company Claro as its sponsor for most of its competitions. In doing so, KSAFA did not seek, nor was it granted permission by the JFF to include the properties of referees in its contract with Claro," the release stated.

It added: "Consistent with the already mentioned dictates of FIFA, no parish association, including KSAFA, has the authority or was granted permission to include referees in any sponsorship agreements."

Won't compromise

Its president, Captain Horace Burrell, who is attending the FIFA congress in The Bahamas, says they won't compromise their sponsorship arrangement.

"In the interest of fair play, legality and honour, the situation cannot and will not be compromised," Captain Burrell was quoted as saying in the said release. "With that established, the JFF cannot permit any one member of the football family, and in this case KSAFA, to bring the sponsorship with Digicel into disrepute, thus bringing the sport into disrepute.

"The JFF is seeking to secure new sponsors prior to the start of the 2009/10 football season," added Burrell. "Please be guided accordingly."

Speid noted that the ball is in the JFF's court, but contends that their position is unacceptable.

"It's the JFF's move right now as our competitions have now stopped as based on our sponsorship with Claro we cannot accept what the JFF has put on the table as this would mean that we would lose our sponsorship, something that we can't afford to happen."