Burrell (left) and Boxhill (right) PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDERS, incumbent Captain Horace Burrell and challenger Crenston Boxhill, are each supremely confident they will win the majority vote at tomorrow's Congress and head football's governing body here, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF).
The quadrennial Congress sitting takes place at Starfish Resort in Trelawny, beginning at 9:00 a.m.
"I am feeling as confident as I felt on day one going into this election programme on Sunday," Captain Horace Burrell told The Gleaner. "I have had the opportunity to visit the parish associations where I had dialogue with the delegates and arising from our meetings, I am extremely confident.
"I have asked my members to support me on the basis of my record of performance and they have responded positively. My delegates are very happy going into the Congress. I'm very happy and just looking forward to meeting up with them and getting the job done."
A total of 104 delegates from the 13 parish FAs across the island will decide and Boxhill, the Clarendon FA president, who is also a JFF vice-president by virtue of the fact that he is chairman of one of the four JFF Confederations, was just as optimistic.
"My team and myself feel extremely confident," the South Central Confed-eration chairman told The Gleaner. "We've done our homework and based on the response that we've gotten from the delegates islandwide we're quite upbeat. We've no doubts that we're going to come out victorious."
Another reason fuelling Boxhill's belief is what he terms a general feeling among affiliates that Burrell is not bringing anything new to the table.
"Even discussing Burrell's approach between some of the delegates,
Burrell's team is not taking anything new to the delegates. All he's asking is to give him some more time to continue doing what he's doing and a lot of what he's doing is destroying the parish associations and the clubs.
"He's putting them under more and more strain and in the present scenario it is getting more and more difficult for parishes and clubs to survive," reasoned Boxhill.
It is the first time in a near 10-year reign that Burrell is being challenged for the presidency of the football federation.
There are six executive positions, but only five persons are clearly defined on each slate. The post of Executive Officer is held by Anthony Hewitt, who claimed in an interview carried in The Gleaner not to be running on "anybody's slate". However, Captain Burrell has listed him as running on his ticket.
Other persons on the former army man's slate are Raymond Anderson (first deputy president), Lincoln 'Happy' Sutherland (second deputy), Dale Spencer (third deputy) and Alan Morrison (treasurer) are running on Burrell's ticket.
Those on Boxhill's ticket are George Evans (first deputy president, Linnel McLean (second deputy), Patrick Roberts (third deputy) and Carlton Barclay (treasurer).
The members of both teams are either executives or board members of the JFF, but for more than a month now they have been involved in a bitter campaign that is strongly believed to have also crossed political lines.
Both presidential candidates said they had blown the final whistle on their respective campaigns and are now looking to formalise a winning score at the ballot.
