It’s common to hear of clubs facing major financial problems. But national federations? The Jamaica Football Federation is in such bad financial shape that a bailiff came to the JFF’s offices andwas ready to haul off its office equipment and trophies — including the 2008 Digicel Caribbean Cup won by the Reggae Boyz — before the JFF paid off half the debt — with money intended to meetpayroll.
The next day, eight staff members were laid off, leaving the JFF with 16 workers — down from 44 two years ago. “The bottom line is we don’t have the funds to maintain thecurrent operation,” JFF general secretary Horace Reid, who hasn’t been paid since December, “so we have scaled down and we have to keep looking todownsize and also retool what is left.”
With debts of $1.4 million, the JFF was forced it to disband the women’s national team program, one of the best in the Caribbean. The bailiff wasseeking to collect on a settlement of a dispute with an agency that promoted a match in England. It was noted that the bailiff would have had trouble hauling some of the items off to storage sincebigger furniture items on the upper floors could not be taken out down the small staircase. (They had been lifted into the building through the roof with the help of a crane.)