Jack calls for football ceasefire

REGIONAL football boss Jack Warner led members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) in a pledge of solidarity for Guatemalan FA president Jose Mauricio Caballeros. This was done on Sunday as the CFU held a conflict symposium at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston. The event was part of a weekend of activities hosted by the CFU as they celebrated their 25th anniversary. Caballeros as well as other officials from Central America were present upon invitation from Warner, who is also president of the CFU.
  
The symposium had Dr Barrington Davidson as the facilitator and his presentation was followed by presidents of the  CFU affiliates. Warner pledged his support to Caballeros and had the backing of all his members which pleased Caballeros. “Like FIFA and CONCACAF have done, every single president in the CFU wishes to express solidarity with your cause,” Warner said. Caballeros won another four-year term at the Guatemalan Federation last September  but has not been fully supported by other officials there including the Government. As such the country was suspended from all activities. However the matter has been destined for resolution and Guatemala are set to continue preparations for their World Cup qualifying campaign. 

Caballeros said, “I want to thank the CFU for their support and this demonstrates the family of football, especially in CONCACAF surrounding my situation in Guatemala and shows the unity in football in this region and even more when the associations are under pressure in different areas. “I want to pay special thanks to President Warner and General Secretary Chuck Blazer for all their support to me as president and also as a person.” He added that as a result of the conflict, the national teams of Guatemala have suffered setbacks in preparing for upcoming qualifying competitions. During the symposium, Warner said that there were evident reasons today why conflicts were creeping up on a regular basis but stressed to his members including his native TT to use ways of solving and even preventing such problems. “At the end of the day I have realised that we in CONCACAF and more so the Caribbean have become seriously exposed to conflicts and we have not been able to resolve them when they appear,” Warner said.

“Over the years this did not occur because not one of you would have been exposed to all that is being offered by the governing body today such as funding, goal projects and other grants,” he said. “Nobody wanted your offices back then because they were not attractive enough. But today football is attractive and therefore everyone wants to get into football quickly because to them football is now like heaven,” he said. “But to get to heaven one has to die first and these new kids on the block don’t want to die. They want the travels and the FIFA grants and this is why today we have conflicts multiplying as much,” said Warner. He spoke about a conflict in Belize where the government have told the FA there that they cannot play matches in the country and as such CONCACAF are now allowing them to play their World Cup qualifying matches in Canada.