The decision comes hot on the heels of Jamaica's elimination from the qualifying competition for the 2006 World Cup Finals in Germany, following a 1-1 draw with the United States in Columbus, Ohio, last Wednesday.

JFF President Crenston Boxhill declined to comment on the firing of Brown but confirmed that he and his top executives held a meeting yesterday regarding the 'Road to Germany' campaign and promised to divulge details at a press conference within the next two days.

In a telephone interview last night, Boxhill told The Gleaner he was "surprised" at the fact that rumours of Brown's dismissal had already been in the media.

"I don't know how they got that but it couldn't have been an official press release," he said.

IMPORTANT MEETING

"We had a very long and important meeting, looking at the 'Road to Germany' campaign. There we came to a number of decisions. One of the decisions that we came to was that we weren't going to divulge our actions publicly until we could hold a press conference between tomorrow (today) and Tuesday," said Boxhill.

Boxhill cited this afternoon's second-leg national Under-17 game against Haiti as one of the reasons that his organisation considered delaying the press conference until tomorrow, but said every effort was being made to have all news from the JFF offices divulged to the media as early as possible.

The meeting came on the heels of Jamaica's 1-1 draw against the United States in Columbus, Ohio. That result had meant that Panama and the United States were to be the two teams from Jamaica's group that would go to the final round of qualification, where six teams will vie for three-and-a-half World Cup spots.

Earlier, head coach of the national team Sebastiao Lazaroni, had his contract terminated, as was expected in the event that he failed to qualify the team.

There was controversy over the hiring of Lazaroni at the expense of Carl Brown, who had to give over power of the national senior team to the Brazilian coach.

Attempts to reach Brown ­ a Christian who has been among the national coaching staff for 14 consecutive years ­ proved futile and only revealed a message recording that speaks to his faith.