Boxhill
Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor
WITHOUT DIVULGING details, football chief Crenston Boxhill described his recent England visit as "fairly successful", as he seeks to maintain contacts for promoting national teams and the sport.
Boxhill, who was elected president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) nearly a fortnight ago, left the island early last week for FIFA's World Cup qualifying draw in Germany.
He visited England on the way back to make contact with a number of persons who had connections with Jamaica's football under the previous administration.
Accompanying him was Portland Football Association (PFA) president, Burchell Gibson, who is strongly tipped to become general secretary of the football organisation in the near future, following the resignation of Horace Reid at the just-concluded JFF elections.
Boxhill and Gibson returned to the island close to midnight on Tuesday and in an interview yesterday, the president told The Gleaner "the trip itself was a fairly successful one."
Discussing his reason for saying so, Boxhill said: "We made some very important contacts which I'm certain are going to assist in both the immediate and long-term development of the game."
One contact included an advisor to the president of world football's governing body, FIFA.
"We had a very important meeting with Peter Hargetai, special advisor to Sepp Blatter," Boxhill said.
Blatter and one of his vice-presidents, Austin 'Jack' Warner, were here last month as guests of the JFF when it honoured several people who had contributed to the game's development in Jamaica. The FIFA president also broke ground for the National Football Training Centre and Academy in Portmore, which it is funding at a cost of US$600,000.
Besides talking to Blatter's aide, Boxhill said: "We had some good discussions with some other federations (football) from outside CONCACAF and we also met with our equipment sponsors Uhlsport."
Boxhill, however, refused to give details about matters discussed because he wants to notify his fellow executives first-hand.
DETAIL OF THE TRIP
"We've a management committee meeting tomorrow and I want to bring them up to date. It is my responsibility to inform them in detail of the trip in general before making it public via the media," he said.
The contacts were made in Britain because most members of Jamaica's senior football team, as well as some junior outfits, are attached as professionals to clubs in that country.
Additionally, the island has played many of its practice internationals there, in the past two months two against Australia and the mighty Brazil, the world champions who got the game's only goal from one among its superstar cast, Roberto Carlos of Real Madrid.
Reggae Boyz captain Theodore Whitmore played a leading role of stabilising the team in that loss and Boxhill said the MoBay man, who plays for Scottish Premiership team Livingstone, was one of the people with whom he spoke.
"I had a very good meeting with the captain, Whitmore," he said. "It was very enlightening and very informative.
"So all in all we had some very good meetings which are very essential as we go through the process of regularising the operations of the office," Boxhill said.
