(Jamaica Gleaner) While accepting the decision, embattled Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) president, Captain Horace Burrell, has described his six-month FIFA ban for an involvement in the much-publicised Caribbean Football Union (CFU) bribery scandal as “harsh”, and has declared that he is willing to walk away from his JFF post if his board asks him to.
Burrell and three other Caribbean football officials were yesterday handed bans by FIFA for their roles in the cash-for-vote scandal, which took place in the build-up to the world body’s presidential elections earlier this year. He has decided against appealing the ban.
In the meantime, the JFF has announced that first vice-president Dale Spencer will assume the role of JFF president in the absence of Burrell.
Will not appeal
Burrell’s CFU presidency candidacy has also taken a nosedive with these developments.
“As for the sanction, I have suffered in the process – the FIFA Ethics Committee suspended me from football activities for a period of three months – they are harsh and painful for me personally, but I will not appeal the decision, considering the relative levity of the sanction and the cause for which it was handed down,” said Burrell in a release to the media yesterday evening.
“As a consequence of the FIFA Ethics Committee ruling, I will step down from the JFF presidency and my CFU position for the next three months,” said Burrell. “If the JFF requests that I step down from the JFF presidency altogether, and despite the sanction which is limited to three months, instead of passing on the baton to my first deputy for the duration of my FIFA suspension, I shall abide by what the majority of the JFF decides. I have no reason to doubt that I shall be readmitted to my present FIFA functions after the three-month suspension has been served.”
Burrell, who has always maintained that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing, suggested that his initial decision not to cooperate with investigators may have resulted in this punishment being meted out to him.
“My initial decision not to cooperate with the foreign investigators was an error on my part … . A majority of the Caribbean football officials who had participated at the CFU meeting in Port-of-Spain had objected to the initial interviews being conducted outside of the Caribbean. This was consequent to the many statements emanating from the different sides and the lack of clarity on how the investigations were to be conducted. The outcry against that original procedure was such that the venue was eventually changed and hearings were set for the Caribbean in Nassau, Bahamas,” Burrell added.
