FFB Discusses Football Pitch with CONCACAF

As we told you, one of the straws which broke the proverbial camel’s back was the disqualification of Belize from the champions League. CONCACAF refused to certify the football pitch for international play because it simply was not adequate. But while nobody argued the lack of readiness of the field, there was some agitation when it was revealed that CONCACAF had certified Guyana’s field which, believe it or not, was in even worse condition than ours. With CONCACAF at the table, so to speak, we figured that the matter would come up, and F.F.B. President Ruperto Vicente said it did.

Ruperto Vicente, President, Football Federation of Belize

Ruperto Vicente

“It has been brought up. In fact I brought it up with the competition manager for CONCACAF and certainly CONCACAF does…whichever way it does make its decision, it is their decision. But understand as well that in this part of the world we are playing against teams from Mexico and those teams from Mexico will not put players on pitches that are not ready to play on. You know, because they invest a lot in their players. As far as they are concerned their players, or a player for them is a million dollar player. So I believe that the Mexicans came here, looked at our pitch, walked on it…remember we had a Mexican coach here that walked on it….and so they got that information that our pitch would not have been ready and was not safe to play on, so they probably got to the television company and said look, we will not play on the Belize field because it will endanger our players, and so we believe that’s the reason the decision was made because as we know, the Champions League is all about television and it is television that controls Champion’s League.”

Previously Vicente had claimed disqualification because of brown spots on the field which would look bad on television. But he now confirms that it was much more than just brown spots.