Footballers protest B.N.F.A. actions
Good evening I’m James Adderley and we certainly want to welcome you to this exciting version of Sports Monday. Instead of taking you out to the football field, we’ll take you instead to Belize National Football Association’s executive office on Simon Lamb Street. As you can see, there is a whole lot of unusual activity this Monday morning. Let’s find out from David McCauley what’s going down.
David McCauley, Kulture Yabra
“The basic thing behind it is that Chimilio and his whole executive are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing for footballers in Belize. They are suffering the footballers, going through a lot of changes and we think it’s time that we take a stand and let them know that we’re serious, we want football to excel in this country.”
Nelson Moss, Griga Tropical
“The B.N.F.A. is supposed to rule in good faith for players, I don’t see it happening, it’s not happening for us. We got cheated in the last National Team. I am an elder player, a spokesman for the game and all that, and we went out there and put in our all, and we didn’t get any support from the B.N.F.A. they are on the coaches back, the coach it trying to bring a love and unity with bare resources, and get us real fired up to go out there and represent Belize, and still they are trying to do things to this man.”
Charlie Slusher, Kulture Yabra
“Many things wrong, and it has been so for a while, but you know the Belizean public probably thinks that the person in charge would have change, but after this the recent events, about the firing of a coach that did so well for the country, obviously it seems that he just wants to run the country as far down as possible when it comes to football.”
James Adderley
“Let me ask you something, it is true the coach said so derogatory things about UNCAF which led to this particular situation?”
Charlie Slusher
“What the coach said, he just spoke his mind and we were grateful that he did have the heart, and I don’t want to say the word, but to come out and really express his feelings about the call and about the game. Because we all knew…a lot of players cried because we knew it was so obvious that we were cheated out of the position. We applaud the coach for his decision to speak out. Other people who should have been the one to speak out, who have the position to speak out, so called vice presidents and so on, they should have been the one to speak out and didn’t do it, yet they want to condemn the person for doing it.”
James Adderley
“So you think coach Lewis was ill treated after doing a good job, basically.”
Charlie Slusher
“He was being ill treated even before we went to Honduras. I had private meetings with the B.N.F.A. president and so on, telling me to remind the players that we are Belizean and the coach, is an alien then. The whole thing is that they knew they couldn’t get rid of the man before the trip or else they wouldn’t have a team. The idea that I gave them was that the players love the coach, so if you’re thinking of getting rid of him, it won’t work. So it seems that they just used to coach to take the team to Honduras and as the tournament is over, when he comes back, it’s just to cut his throat.”
Jerome Mejia, Headcoach, Kulture Yabra
“They don’t care about this game. They don’t feel it like me and you who play it. They don’t have it. How long must we tolerate this? What are we waiting for? We are going to stay here because we need to see Chimilio personally or Mr. Miller, because either they come out of the office today, which is one of our major things, or we’d want then to hand over the keys.”
Emmerson Guild, President, Belize Youth Soccer League
“There are many people who I’ve seen out here in the crowd today, who have the good of football at heart, but I’ve also seen some that I know who would be very callous with the authority of the B.N.F.A. in their power. I am hoping though that the Belize football community will in fact select the very best that it can find, that have the integrity of the sport at heart, and the love of the game.”
Meanwhile, Darius Daniels was the sole member of the Belize National Football Association willing to give us a short statement.
James Adderley
“The failure of the current executive to provide leadership in football, this is a part of the protest, can you see that happening?”
Darius Daniels, B.N.F.A. Executive
“I will not make any comments concerning that. All I can tell you at this point in time is that the executive is reviewing the case and hopefully by weekend we should come up with an answer for all these problems.”
For sometime now friction has been on the increase inside the football family of Belize. President Dr. Bertie Chimilio has been in the eye of this hurricane for sometime too, and this time he might just not survive.
First he has been seen to encourage an incompetent coach in the name of Manuel Bilches, and when he got a good grassroots coach like Leroy Sherrier Lewis of Costa Rica, he fires him. Now all his failings and shortcomings have been combined to create this big stir. Of course we’ll keep you posted. Something has to give this time.
Now let’s get to the action on the field. At the MCC Grounds yesterday, league leading Kulture Yabra played host to Leslie’s Verdes.
First half did not produce a whole lot of action and have David McCauley believes he’s got a clean gateway only to be rudely awakened.
At the other end Oliver Hendricks centres into the danger zone, but Charlie Slusher comes up with two good defensive moves, and at the half it’s a scoreless ballgame.
Meanwhile folks, as if football didn’t have enough problems, this T-shirt shows that the B.N.F.A. as an association registered and owned by Nidal Jihad Mclaren, but that’s a story for another time.
But back to the game at hand, Edon Rawley comes out smoking for Yabra, but the left foot is easily collected by the keeper.
The first goal of the ballgame comes when number twelve Guillermo Castellanos comes up when this loose ball and bombs Charlie Slusher for the Verdes 1-zip lead.
Less than a minute later, Norman Nunez makes this individual move that culminates in this vicious right foot shot that brings the equalizer and the reply for Yabra.
David “Manu” McCauley then gets this opportunity to give Yabra the lead, but his shot is right at the keeper. On this play Oliver Hendricks screams for a penalty call against Serrano, who might have touched the ball with his hand, but the whistle does not provide him any support.
Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Well this striker from Verdes knows what it’s all about. At the end of regulation we have a 1-1 tie.
In overtime Yabra looks to grab the sudden death win when Nunez clears traffic, but finds a block when he fires. In fact it’s more of the same when Nunez leads McCauley to the goal for a one on one situation, which is won the Verdes keeper and now we must go to penalty kicks.
Charlie Slusher steps up to convert the first penalty for Yabra. Now watch Gigio Flores. He could not quite find the back of the net on this try and nobody else would miss the goal in the penalty kicks, which gave Yabra the big W on penalties. They get a point to pushing their league total to fifteen points.
Meanwhile in other action over the weekend, Metro Stars bombed Builders Hardware Bandits 1-zip and Sagitun took out Juventus all of 5-1.
In closing, we just want to say that yes, we are gonna keep you posted with the happenings inside the Belizean football community. Something as we said earlier will have to give.
