The Tribune

The Bahamas Football Association (BFA) continues to collapse.

Last week, Kevin McGreskin resigned from his position of Technical Director, effective immediately, apparently for numerous reasons. Kevin is the most qualified person to ever work with the BFA, holding his UEFA A Licence in three national associations including the English FA, Welsh FA and Irish FA and being a regular speaker at many UEFA events.

Insiders comment that there were issues from the beginning. “Kevin was never given a budget to operate within and always seemed to be held back from helping develop the sport,” said one club president who wished to remain anonymous.

It seems the BFA is destroying itself from the inside after the recent divide that resulted in five clubs being “excluded” from the BFA’s Youth League and two of those clubs having their membership suspended. The exclusions and suspensions were questionable in how they were handed down. According to the suspended clubs, there was no due process and the General Secretary, Fred Lunn, acted on his own accord to issue the suspensions.

“Suspensions would normally go through a process using a Disciplinary Committee to hear both sides of the story and try to resolve the issue,” the club president said. “The Disciplinary Committee would then report their findings or a recommended action to the BFA’s Executive Committee, where a vote would be held to determine the course of action to be taken. In this case, there was never any contact from the BFA to the ‘excluded’ clubs for a discussion about what happened. There was no Disciplinary Committee and there was never a vote by the Executive Committee.”

What role has Anton Sealey, the BFA President, played through all of this? He has taken a back seat and a ‘leave me out of this’ approach it seems. Bar one attempt via mediation there has been little attempt on his part to try and resolve the issues as he continues to let Mr Lunn cause damage to the football family here. Mr Sealey has been considering running for the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) presidency this coming May even though his current association is in shambles. It seems he is not interested in The Bahamas any more after he stated during the AGM last November that he would resign as soon as the Beach Soccer World Championships are over in 2017.

It would appear that Mr Sealey is only interested in landing a CONCACAF or FIFA position and leave the nearly 1,300 kids playing locally separated and in disarray.

The issues within the BFA are many and divisive. Last October, five clubs were initially “excluded” from the Youth League even though seven clubs participated in a non-BFA deemed ‘league’. The reasoning for the other two clubs not being suspended remains unclear.

In December, Mr Lunn went to The Bahamas Immigration Department in an attempt to have D Chris Brogdon, President of Baha Juniors FC and the former Beach Soccer National Team Manager, removed from the country.

Also, on December 17, Mr Lunn filed a lawsuit for defamation against Mr Brogdon and Antoine Dias, BFA Vice President, President of the Bahamas Football Coaches Association and President of FC Nassau, claiming that Mr Dias’ request to see the BFA’s financial records was “understood to mean and/or imply that the Plaintiff is dishonest and not worthy to be General Secretary performing all financial accounting related activities and transactions on behalf of BFA”. A BFA vice president, who is trying to get some answers as to how the over $1,000,000 given to the BFA by FIFA in 2015 was being spent, is now in court because the General Secretary did not like that a vice president was inquiring as to how money was being spent?

Mr Dias has also been excluded from e-mails and communications among the Executive Committee of the BFA, of which he is an elected member. Most recently, an Executive Committee meeting was convened in secret in an attempt to have him removed; yet another failure to comply with the FIFA rules and statutes.

Why is the General Secretary making so much effort going after these two individuals, and others before them?

Why is the BFA falling apart? To answer this question, you have to take a look at its leadership. It would appear that Mr Sealey has lost control of the BFA and its General Secretary. Mr Sealey seems to only have interest in two things now, the 2017 Beach Soccer World Cup and a CONCACAF or FIFA position. He does not appear to be acting in the best interest of the sport locally. If he was, Mr Sealey would have found a way to reunite the two groups and the General Secretary would have been removed from his position based on his conduct, breaking of FIFA and BFA statutes, changing and modifying rules when it fits him, taking out personal attacks on members, enforcing rules for one but not the other and more.

Kevin McGreskin’s departure from the BFA is a direct result of the dysfunctional BFA and its current administrative body. The question is how much more will the member clubs of the BFA put up with? How much worse will the BFA get before enough is finally enough? We can’t get any lower in the world rankings as we are currently officially last in the world at 204th and with Mr McGreskin’s resignation, there is now no National Development Programme, no coaches training and seemingly no hope to have any real development within the sport for the unforeseen future under the current BFA administration.

BFA members, parents and players, it is time to make a change. It’s time to bring everyone back to the table and work for the common goal that ultimately is giving the kids the best opportunity to develop. It’s time to get off the sinking BFA ship.

Anton Sealey, the BFA president, declined to comment on the record when contacted by The Tribune yesterday.