The Editor speaks: A boxing gym…. but what has happened to our football?
It was good that Manny Pacquiao attended the groundbreaking event for the Bodden Town Boxing Gym last Saturday(7). I hope the actual building of the Gym doesn’t take another four years to actually get built and opened just before an election.
What disturbs more is the state of the Island’s football (soccer).
What is happening?
When Jeff Webb was the Knight in Shining Armour and not the Devil in Disguise our local football was never out of the news.
Everyone was Gung Ho. Our youth both male and female wanted to play. In fact our young women were really going places. People were taking notice. Scouts, especially from the United Kingdom, were buzzing all over the place.
Webb was the Knight Errant for the FIFA throne. The Cayman Islands was the hottest place for soccer’s growth.
Then disaster. Webb was found to be corrupt.
And every where Webb was and associated with there was corruption. Even when there was no proved corruption just by association with Webb there was suspicion of such.
The Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) had not just got Webb they had another corrupt official, Canover Watson.
Auditor’s also found suspicious financial irregularities in CIFA’s accounts.
Bruce Blake, another friend and associate of both Webb and Watson, who was now at the helm of CIFA, was asked by the government minster and by many public voices who had the interest of Cayman Islands football at heart, to resign. “No,” he said.
Blake eventually did but still held a senior position on the executive board (as Vice President) and then got himself elected onto the executive committee of the Caribbean Football Union.
The new Cayman Islands Football Union president Lee Ramoon has hardly made a difference since he has been at the helm.
Cayman minister of sport, Osbourne Bodden, has held firm to the stance that CIFA will not receive another cent of funding from the government until financial regularities are accounted for. He wants a clean sweep of the board – everyone who served under Webb.
Even with that stark warning the CIFA board is still there and football here in the Cayman Islands is suffering.
Cayman Islands football is a dirty word and the only people to really blame are the Cayman Islands Football clubs themselves who have the mandate to throw everyone out.
So why do the present board members want to stay there? Why hasn’t the clubs got rid of them?
Would a new board uncover things that are unpalatable? Would implicate others? Or are the present board members doing it because they truly believe they are there for the betterment of football in this country?
If it is the latter perhaps they can tell us what they have actually achieved since the departure of Webb and Watson?
I can see nothing?
And without government’s backing football here will stagnate and finally die the death as has cricket. And cricket has never had the corruption problem. It never got the finance foot ball got.
But we do have a boxing gym. Or do we?
Well said Mr Editor. It is well over a year before the CIFA corruption came to hand and you are quite right about the clubs. They can make the change required but are just lethargic although I suspect that some of their activities would not pass the sniff test. Sadly the new President whom I met several moths ago has made no difference. There is still no webb site, excuse the pun, and thus the football public has no clue as to what is taking place. There have been no accounts since 2014. However what bothers me most is the lack of cash to run the association with no significant sponsorship from either the business community or government. The best way forward is for CIFA to recover the stolen monies and take legal action against the guilty parties. That is only likely to happen when the new board, one with clean hands is elected.