Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter

Burrell

Jamaica's Reggae Boyz will see a second straight friendly international fail to materialise, after the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) was forced to call off the country's proposed friendly international against Haiti, following what has been described as negligence on the part of the organisers.

In the meantime, the JFF was in discussions last night with the Barbados Football Association (BFA) seeking to arrange an international football encounter between their senior teams.

Jamaica and Haiti were scheduled to meet on May 18 in Fort Lauderdale, but according to JFF boss, Captain Horace Burrell, the requisite contractual arrangements have just not been met.

"They were certain deadlines, like 50 per cent of the match fee which was to be paid and other administrative arrangements such as hotels to be put in place and confirmed, and up until last night, they were not," Burrell explained.

"In constant dialogue over the past month, which they kept promising to sort things out, it is clear that the organisations are just not able to put the arrangements together."

Prevent embarrassment

"Therefore, in order to prevent any embarrassment first of all to our players or the fans, we advised them that we had called the game off. It is very important that when we play under the banner of Jamaica, that this be done in a professional and proficient manner."

Haiti, the first Caribbean team to make an appearance at the FIFA World Cup Finals, are ranked 106th in the FIFA rankings and are the current holders of the Digicel Caribbean Cup.

Chris Duke, administration and international games coordinator of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), confirmed some of the inactivity in regard to the friendly international.

"At this time, we haven't received an application for that game, we have heard that it is in the works but we haven't been contacted by any of the promoters," Duke told The Gleaner.

"Our regulations state that we should have had an application from them by this time, but with that being said there have been instances where we haven't received one until shortly before the match."

One month ago Jamaica saw another proposed friendly international, against Argentina, scheduled for London on May 31 called off, after the South American giants opted to face Mexico and then the United States instead.