Govt. intervenes in football crisis
It’s a decision that will diminish Belizean football in the eyes of the world, but one that in the end the Government says has become necessary. In this week’s Cabinet briefing the executive has quote “supported a decision of the National Sports Council to suspend the Football Federation of Belize from representing association football in Belize until their relationship with the national sporting authority has been rationalized.” The move, which essentially ices the F.F.B., is critically timed because if the N.S.C., the F.F.B., and the Belize Premier Football League don’t kiss and make up, FIFA, the world football body, will make us forfeit the World Cup qualifying games with Canada, scheduled for June. Today, Prime Minister Musa was confident that the conflict can be resolved if the parties agree to put football first.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“We are not closing down anybody. They are the ones, the F.F.B., that are refusing to cooperate with the sports organisations in Belize. Whether it be with the Premier League Football League Association, which produces the best players in the country, or whether it be with the National Sports Council. They seem to think that they are a law unto themselves. They fail to realize that when they have a competition abroad they are carrying the Belizean flag, the sovereign name of Belize is at stake and we have to protect that. And the situation, as Minister Francis said yesterday, can’t get any worse. So we need to get this thing to a head, we need to resolve it and I think the ball is now in the F.F.B court. If they want this thing to be resolved very quickly, all they need to do is sit down with the Sports Council and have this open and transparent approach towards sports and should be in any other sector and I feel the issue can be resolved. But there is too much stubbornness at work here, too much arrogance at play, and they need to know that in the final analysis, the Government of Belize has to act in the best interest of Belizean sports men and women.”
The National Sports Council has called a press conference for Thursday morning to discuss the recent developments in football.
