By Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter.JPG)
NATIONAL JUNIOR coach Peter Cargill has dismissed claims of unsportsmanlike behaviour by himself and the national Under-23 football squad during their recent three-match tour of Bermuda.
In the last game of the tour, Jamaica lost 1-2 to a Bermuda select team, after the home team had converted a 'questionable' penalty in the final ten minutes of the game.
According to Bermudian George Holdipp, in a letter to the Editor, the decision to award the penalty to the home team did not go down well with the visitors as "it was obvious by the body language and the remonstrations with the referee that the Jamaican players felt hard done".
However, Cargill disagreed that the body language of the players suggested dissent. "Was anybody sent off, was anybody given a yellow card?," he asked.
Holdipp said that the former national player and his players insulted his country.
"Coach Peter Cargill and his team protested by refusing to attend the post match presentation preferring to stay in their dressing room. This despite the fact that the Bermudan Premier Jennifer Smith (who made the presentation) and Sports Minister Randy Horton were on the podium."
In his defence, the veteran midfielder said: "We did not know there was a presentation ceremony, we were in the changing room talking."
The coach said it was a moment of reflection for his team as "it was after a tough game with some tough decisions.
"Our players were in the changing room talking nobody came to us and asked us to attend a presentation ceremony," Cargill added.
When asked whether it was not standard practice to attend presentation ceremonies, the coach said it was more a matter of showing up on invitation.
"I think they should have informed us," Cargill said. "If one is going to have a presentation ceremony then the other party should be informed," he noted.
The Bermudian said Cargill's only comment to the media was 'you bring us all the way down here to rob us'.
Cargill denied making that statement. He says the statement was coined by reporters as he made absolutely no comment.
"I was standing with about 15 or 20 person outside the bench area, he (a journalist) came and asked for an interview and I said no comment and he threatened to write whatever he wished to write and he did that," Cargill said.
