KINGSTON: Jamaica’s Horace Burrell, one of the contenders to take over as president of troubled CONCACAF, has back rival Jeff Webb, president of the Cayman Islands FA, for the challenge of leading the Cenral and North American confederation.
Burrell, president of theJFA, appears to have persuaded that to pursue a candidacy of his own would split the Caribbean vote for a presidential replacement for controversial Jack Warner.
The election will be staged on May 23 when the CONCACAF member delegates hold a congress in Budapest on the eve of the FIFA Congress there.
Burrell, who served a short suspension for not co-operating with the initial FIFA inquiry into bribery allegations at a CFU conference last May, said: “Jeff Webb has asked for my support and. having done a lot of work in the recent months, I’ve decided to give him that support.
“It is very important [for someone from the CFU to lead CONCACAF] because over the years we’ve discovered that the Caribbean is a very diverse community in so far as the whole football development is concerned, and having a Caribbean person as head of CONCACAF would always be a great help to the enhancement of football throughout the region.
“The reason is I guess the Caribbean would understand the difficulties that each other face and hence, can sometimes tailor programmes to assist. It is one region and we intend to move forward with unity, but I also believe it is important to have a leader from the Caribbean, which makes up the majority of the CONCACAF, and we think that that is the way to go.”
Warner, whose term was to run until 2015, resigned last June to avoid facing up to allegations concerning the CFU conference which had been organised the support the vain attempt by Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam to oust FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Honduras’ Alfredo Hawitt has been acting president of CONCACAF since last year. The next president will complete Warner’s term and CONCACAF member associations can still nominate other candidates up to 60 days before the Congress.