Boxhill, left, and Reid.
Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor
THE JAMAICA Football Federation (JFF) is to advertise the post of general secretary tomorrow.
"The general secretary has resigned. We'll be advertising the post come Monday," newly-elected president of the sport's governing body here, Crenston Boxhill, told The Gleaner in an interview last week.
The position became vacant last Sunday when Horace Reid resigned immediately after former president, Captain Horace Burrell, was dethroned at the election.
Boxhill asked Reid to stay on in the interim but he is not expected to get an answer before this evening.
"I've asked Mr Reid (Horace) to stay on. He has not given a commitment, he's away with his team in Trinidad and Tobago," Boxhill said.
Reid's team, Portmore United, will return today from the east Caribbean country where they played CFU Club Championship semi-final games against W-Connection.
In the lead-up to the elections, long-time JFF Director of Competitions Burchell Gibson, who is also president of the Portland Football Association (PFA), was being promoted as the man to take the general secretary position on Boxhill's team.
That belief was strengthened when Gibson resigned from the JFF just weeks before the elections.
NOT AN AUTOMATIC FIT
However, Boxhill says Gibson, a UWI graduate, is not an automatic fit and must apply for the job like anybody else.
"Once he's interested he'll apply like anybody else and he'll be considered just like any other candidate," Boxhill said.
"We're looking for the best person for the job and not necessarily one out of sentiments." He added though, that: "Probably the fact that he (Gibson) spent so much time in football, based on what we'll be looking for he'll have some kind of an edge over most people."
Boxhill was asked other questions relating to staff changes, one about persons being fired for attempting to remove documents from the office since he took up office Monday morning; and whether wholesale changes would be made to the JFF staff.
In relation to staffers being fired for removing documents, Boxhill said: "That's not true. Nobody has been fired since we have been here."
Pressed further, he stated: "I'd rather not comment on that right now. If there's a comment to be made as far as that is concerned it will be made in due course."
As a follow-up, Boxhill, whose team had openly challenged the "lack of transparency" of the previous administration, was asked if they were digging to clarify some of those issues.
His response: "It's kind of early to tell but the treasurer (Carlton Barclay) is going through the records in detail and at a later date we'll be in a position to say."
He added: "We're here now and we're slowly but surely looking into some of those things, contracts, whatever. It's not that we're expecting to find any skeletons but we're just familiarising ourselves with what's there."
Regarding the question of wholesale staff changes, Boxhill, who served as president of four different parish FA's, said: "The staff is going to be retained strictly on professional performance. We didn't come with a view of making wholesale changes just for change sake. What is going to determine whether the staff is retained or not is strictly their professional performance."
