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Captain is Dead. Long Live the Captain! - fbjnewsie - 07-06-2017
Shock and grief descended upon the Jamaican sporting fraternity yesterday, as news of the passing of Captain Horace Burrell, perennial president of the Jamaica Football Association (JFF), hit the world.
Absent from the local scene for a prolonged period, Burrell, 67, died in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States (US), after suffering from cancer for the past year and having to undergo treatment at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Treatment Center, also in Maryland.
Renowned for his robust leadership qualities, the football chief served as a Captain in the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).
He would later be tasked with looking after the JDF football team by Colonel Ken Barnes, the father of English international footballer John Barnes.
Burrell’s journey with the JDF team saw him crossing paths with Jack Warner, Trinidad politician and former football executive who subsequently offered him an executive position at the Caribbean Football Union (CFU).
Following a stint at the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA), Burrell staged a successful bid for the presidency of the JFF in 1994.
The captain would then try his hand at business, having founded The Captain’s Bakery and Grill in 1995 and later Captain’s Aviation Services in 2008.
CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT
Most would voice that Burrell’s crowning achievement came in 1997, when the Jamaica National Football team secured qualification to the 1998 FIFA World Cup Finals in France, marking the first time an English-speaking Caribbean country qualified for the world's most prestigious event.
For his outstanding service to football, in 1998 he was bestowed with the Order of Distinction (Commander Class) by the Jamaican Government and the Order of Merit from the world football governing body, FIFA.
Burrell also held the offices of Senior Vice President of CONCACAF and Vice President of the CFU. He served as a member of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee and a Vice President of the Jamaica Olympic Association.
In October 2011, the FIFA Ethics Committee imposed a six-month ban on Burrell, having implicated him in the Caribbean Football Union corruption scandal.
The Committee later suspended three months of the ban, subject to a probationary period of two years.
“May his soul rest in peace. That’s all I can say right now and of course, I hope his family is quickly able to recover from his demise,” Jack Warner told The Gleaner.
Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange expressed shock and sadness at the passing.
“Football in Jamaica has lost a cornerstone,” said Grange, whilst conveying her sympathy to family, friends and the executive of the JFF.
Social media also went into a tailspin, with tributes pouring in from across the globe.
Captain Horace Burrell is survived by his children, daughter, Dr. Tiphani Burrell-Piggott and sons Romario and Jaeden.
After being elected to office in 1994, Burrell was instrumental in leading the Reggae Boyz to the 1998 World Cup in France, making Jamaica the first English-speaking Caribbean country to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.
He received Jamaica’s fourth highest national honour, the Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD) in 1998. He also received the highest award, Order of Merit, from the world football governing body, FIFA, in 2000 for his outstanding leadership skills in piloting the Jamaica Football team to the World Cup. A number of countries were said to have adopted the Jamaican model of development in their quest for World Cup Final qualification due to their success.
FIFA banned senior Caribbean official Horace Burrell for six months on Friday for the Jamaican's part in a bribery case involving former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam, plunging the region's soccer authorities deeper into chaos.
Burrell, a long-time ally of former FIFA vice president Jack Warner and a member of FIFA's disciplinary committee, must now withdraw from the Caribbean Football Union presidential election scheduled for next month.
Since the bribery scandal broke in May, the CONCACAF continental body has seen its top three elected Caribbean officials -- Warner, Burrell and Lisle Austin -- either resign while under investigation or be banned by FIFA.
FIFA's ethics committee ruled three months of the Jamaican federation president's ban will be deferred for a probationary period of two years.
Burrell said in a statement that Friday's actions "are harsh and painful for me personally, but I will not appeal the decision, considering the relative levity of the sanction and the cause for which it was handed down."
He said it will be up to the JFF to decide his future with the national body -- whether to replace him temporarily for the length of the ban or permanently -- but he still saw a future for himself within FIFA.
"I have no reason to doubt that I shall be readmitted to my present FIFA functions after the three-months suspension has been served," Burrell said.
Three other Caribbean officials also received bans.
Franka Pickering, president of the British Virgin Islands federation and one of the most senior women in world soccer, was suspended for 18 months.
FIFA issued 30-day bans to Osiris Guzman, president of the Dominican Republic soccer federation, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines general secretary Ian Hypolite. Fifteen days of their sanctions were deferred for six months.
The ethics panel met for three days this week to weigh evidence of CFU members allegedly accepting $40,000 cash payments from bin Hammam in May.
The Qatari official made a campaign visit to Trinidad, the home island of then-CFU leader Warner, to woo voters during his challenge to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Bin Hammam was banned for life by FIFA in July.
Burrell was favored to win a four-candidate poll in Jamaica on Nov. 20 to succeed Warner as CFU leader. Burrell's bid was ultimately ended by his own voters.
Former Jamaica Prime Minister Edward Seaga, who is president of his country's Premier League Clubs Association, said he regretted the sanctions against Burrell.
"(He) has given great service to Jamaican football," Seaga said. "But we must also be happy that FIFA is taking steps to clean the nest of corruption in Caribbean football."
Whistleblowers from four Caribbean countries sparked the probe by telling CONCACAF's American general secretary Chuck Blazer that brown envelopes stuffed with $100 bills were being offered in a Port of Spain hotel.
Blazer's alert to FIFA led the body to hire former FBI director Louis Freeh's investigation agency to interview Caribbean officials and gather evidence for the ethics panel.
FIFA's ethics panel reprimanded three other officials on Friday: St. Kitts and Nevis soccer president Anthony Johnson, U.S. Virgin Islands president Hillaren Frederick and Aubrey Liburd, vice president of the British Virgin Islands soccer body.
Five others received warnings, including FIFA committee members Yves Jean-Bart, the Haiti soccer president, and Richard Groden, Trinidad and Tobago's general secretary.
Former international referee Mark Bob Forde was also warned, along with his fellow Barbados official David Hinds and Burrell's federation general secretary Horace Reid.
FIFA said it dropped cases against David Fredericks of the Cayman Islands and Joseph Delves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines because they had left the sport.
"Should they return to football official positions, their cases would be examined again by the ethics committee," FIFA said in a statement.
FIFA did not give the officials the same "presumption of innocence" it accorded Warner in June when the 28-year executive committee veteran resigned rather than face sanctions.
FIFA banned Barbados official Austin for one year after he used a civil court in the Bahamas to pursue his bid, as interim president of CONCACAF, to fire Blazer in what was seen as act of revenge on Warner's behalf.
Also Friday, FIFA said a hearing into the case of Guyana official Noel Adonis was postponed and a case left open into the conduct of St. Lucia official Patrick Mathurin.
FIFA cleared Felix Ledesma of the Dominican Republic of committing any violation.
After the scandal emerged, bin Hammam withdrew his election bid three days before the FIFA vote in June. He denies bribery and is appealing his life ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Blatter ran unopposed and won a fourth four-year presidential term. He was endorsed by 186 FIFA members, including most Caribbean islands.
FIFA's executive committee meets next week for the time since the election, and probably will do so without a Caribbean delegate because the process of replacing Warner was stalled by Austin's legal action.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) _ Attackers shot and killed the son of Horace Burrell, president of Jamaica's Football Federation, police said Tuesday.
Tahj Burrell, 20, and a friend, Jason Byles, were shot as they were entering a Kingston pizza restaurant Sunday night, Sgt. Victor Henry said.
Byles returned fire with his own gun before being killed. Burrell was pronounced dead at University Hospital, Henry said.
A motive for the slayings was under investigation. There were no immediate arrests.
1. Born February, 8, 1950 in May Pen, Clarendon
2. Received Jamaica’s fourth highest national honour, the Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD) in 1998.
4. Received the highest award, Order of Merit, from the world football governing body, FIFA.
5. Founder, the Captain’s Bakery and Grill in 1995 and Captain’s Aviation Services in 2008.
6. Served as President of the Jamaica Football Federation between 1994 and 2003, and from 2007 until today.
7. Was the chief architect for Jamaica’s historic qualification to the FIFA World Cup in France 1998.
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8. Was the Senior Vice President of CONCACAF and a former Vice President of the CFU.
9. Served as a member of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee and a Vice President of the Jamaica Olympic Association.
10. Under his leadership, Jamaica also qualified for three FIFA youth World Cup tournaments: Under 17 New Zealand 1999, Under 20 Argentina 2001 and Under 17 Mexico 2011.
A short Biography
by: Desmond Allen & John Maxwell
March, 2004
The decades of the 80s and 90s in Jamaica were, for all practical purposes, lost decades. The bitter ideological conflict which marked the 70s and the national movement it fermented, had given way to the rule of every man for himself and preoccupation with the need to survive the harsh economic climate. Jamaicans were reluctant even to stand for the National Anthem, and the black, green and gold flag, which should symbolise the cherished ideals of a proud nation, was hardly worth the cloth on which it was draped.
Indiscipline was rampant and productivity in the doldrums. At one stage, and in utter frustration, Prime Minister Edward Seaga was moved to chastise the business community, describing them as "producers of words and manufacturers of excuses". A change of government to the charismatic Michael Manley did not bring about any significant change in social mores. Truly, it seemed, Jamaica had lost its very soul. But in the midst of the despair, there was one man who had a vision. He had been a soldier in the Jamaica Defence Force and he was a man who could dream.
Years before that, Lieutenant Horace Garfield Burrell had seen a newspaper headline which shouted: "Boys' Town drill soldiers". It was a cute headline but it had cut to the core of Burrell's being. The soldiers, some of whom were under his command, were being humiliated before the nation. He took control of the football squad and guided them to victory and the premier league trophy, symbol of football supremacy in Jamaica. It had never happened before and has never happened since. But it foretold an unlikely event that would set Jamaican football on a path to unimagined glory.
As the 90s were drawing to a close, Burrell would look at Jamaican football and dream that it could reach the top. In the age of the Inquisition, he would have been burnt at the stake for uttering such a madness and audacity. When you think of it, Jamaica had no business going to the World Cup, given the impossible state of the country's football infrastructure. But it was a dream that would set a country ablaze with goose-pimpling pride and re-ignite the dying embers of nationalism, gushing over like a flood into the far reaches of the Jamaican Diaspora.
One man's dream became the vision of a nation. And in 1998, Jamaica, mere minnows, ran onto the World Cup football field in Paris with giants the likes of Argentina; beat the team from the world's second most powerful economy, Japan; and placed ahead of the world's only superpower, the USA, at the pinnacle of global soccer.
How then could anyone tell that in a matter of a few years, this same man - who had received a national admiration reserved for heroes, won his country's fifth highest honour, the Commander of the Order of Distinction and gained football's greatest accolade, the Order of Merit from soccer's governing body, FIFA - would suffer so undignified a defeat among people who had basked in the glory born of his vision and determination?
They say of Burrell that he is a tough and unyielding negotiator, a man endowed with a sizeable helping of Jamaican braggadocio and that as soccer glory crowned the island, his stride became bigger than football itself. But even Burrell's fiercest critics admit it is unlikely any of it would have happened at all without his iron determination, steely focus and supreme self-confidence.
Those self-same reserves of strength and resolve would have to serve him only a couple years later when Burrell's true mettle and character would be tested way beyond a football federation election defeat. As two hapless murderers snuffed out the life of his first son, Taj, with whom he shared a rare father-son relationship - "We were best friends" - Burrell would feel his world collapse around him. And he would not understand how anyone could harm one hair on the head of the son of a man who had only a couple of years before released such orgasmic joy in an emotionally starving nation. The intriguing story of Horace Burrell is one for the annals of Jamaican history. We'll begin in May Pen, the Clarendon capital where he was born, the third son of a land baron.
Farm stories and simple people
On February 8, 1950, Edward and Linda Burrell were probably hoping for a girl after having had two sons - Edward Maurice and Carlton Lloyd. After all, how could they know that this new baby would bring the family such fame and ensure the name Burrell a special place in their country's history? Whatever might have been their preference, they lovingly welcomed the new bundle of joy and named him Horace Garfield.
Even by today's standards, Edward Burrell was one of Jamaica's biggest farmers, and certainly was the biggest tobacco grower in Clarendon. He was head of a family property, Oaks estate, inherited from his father, Joseph Burrell and which bordered four townships stretching from Lucky Valley to Coxwain to Suttons and on to Rock River. The land was fertile in sugar cane, citrus and tobacco, and cattle grazed for several hundred acres. Many subsistence farmers tilled the land, growing cash crops. In the riverbed which ran across the property, sand-mining was a major activity.
Young Horace grew up as a farm boy. He spent time between the farm and a house in May Pen that his father acquired for breaks away from the farm. There were many happy and exciting days with his brothers and a cousin, Weldon 'Pat' Maddix, who grew up with the family. They watched the farmers at work and heard their amusing, sometimes sad stories of life. Burrell learnt to appreciate their simple life and their generous disposition.
He recalls that his mother was always there to care for the children. She had taught for a short time after passing the 3rd Jamaica Local exam, but gave that up to become a tower of strength to her husband as he managed so large an enterprise. Curiously, the Burrell children did not call their parents "mommy" or "daddy". They called them "mother" and "father". So did the rest of the community. They were strict parents and moral values were central to their existence. Church was "every Sunday" at St Gabriel's Anglican, May Pen.
Omar Davies, Bobby Pickersgill et al
At age 11, Burrell passed the Common Entrance Exam and went to Clarendon College under principal C L "Pops" Stuart and later John MacMillan. His brother Carlton was at the newly-created Glenmuir High with one Omar Davies, a finance minister-in-the-making and "whom I got to know from he was in short pants", Burrell muses. Maurice, his other brother, had been sent to school in England, where they had many close relatives. At Clarendon College, Burrell was a 'little boy' to big boys like Robert Pickersgill, now minister of transport and works, his brother Tony Pickersgill and the girl, Fay, whom Tony would marry after many years of 'rent-a-tile' dancing. Among Burrell's other peers were: Gladstone Bonnick; Raymond Wright; Norton Hinds; and Glenroy Miller.
Burrell was involved in almost every extra-curricular activity at school, especially enjoying football (he made the school's Under-14 team for the Galloway Cup), cricket, camera club and the debating society. But there was nothing to him like the cadet force. So engrossed was he that he soon began to ignore the other activities to concentrate on the cadets, loving to teach the younger boys map reading, rifle shooting and other disciplines.
He attained the rank of drum major in the cadet force at school, something he had day-dreamed about from younger days when he saw the drum corps leading the school's annual Founder's Day parade from Rose Bank through the town of Chapleton and fancied himself at the head of it. He was selected two years in a row by the Jamaica Combined Cadet Force to represent Jamaica in cadet exchanges with Canada and Trinidad and Tobago. To anyone looking on, it wasn't hard to see that Burrell had already found his calling in life. He would one day be a soldier.
"From those early days I had a strong sense of discipline. I believed in being disciplined, tough and daring. I was a very adventurous person," he reflects. But after 'A' Levels, Burrell wasn't immediately clear on what he would do with his life.
As fate would have it, he went to hang out for a while with his brother, Carlton, who by now was working as an engineer at the Revere and Alpart bauxite-alumina plants. There he met Carlton's engineer and school-master friends, including Ryland Campbell, the current chairman of Capital and Credit Merchant Bank and who was teaching at St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS). Campbell told him he seemed to be a fine young man and would probably do well at teaching. The STETHS principal, John Pottinger, was looking for someone to teach Biology and Agricultural Science.
Burrell had done both at Clarendon College and liked the idea. But he was totally bowled over when Pottinger, at the end of the interview, told him he was hired immediately! "I was dumbstruck, excited and scared all at once because most of the boys there were about my age," he says. But everything fell into place, once he had started. One of his outstanding students, he recalls, was Garfield Myers, the current sports editor at the Observer newspaper.
They murdered my boy
STETHS would be memorable too for the fact that he met Lourea Simpson and was immediately smitten. She was a student then, but about five or six years after school, the relationship blossomed into a raging love affair. He married her in 1976 and the union produced a daughter, Tiffany, who is doing her PhD at Yale, after her Masters at Howard University; and a son, the late Taj Burrell, whose death exposed the soft inner core under the seemingly tough exterior of his outstanding father.
Taj had gone to live with his dad after the marriage ended in divorce. They had the kind of father-son relationship that most boys only dream of. "He was my little brother, my best friend and so his brutal murder was devastating," says Burrell, his face a mask of grief. "But closure is just now coming since his two murderers have been convicted and sentenced to death."
These days, Burrell has transferred all the love to Romario, his gifted eight year-old second son. He was named after the Brazilian football whiz who has given him his shirt and played host to him at dinner. Recently, Romario led his school science team to victory in a competition and has been called on to read for his Roman Catholic Church congregation. The proud father forgets this is his interview! "I love him dearly," he confesses.
A soldier's training
But before Burrell had left STETHS, he was inching ever closer to a career in the defence force. He had been placed in charge of the school's cadet squad at the rank of second lieutenant. At this point, he had no doubt that he wanted to be in the military, and the passion was growing. Sure enough, he applied to the JDF and enthusiastically took on the physical endurance, leadership appreciation and mental ability tests, carried out over three days under very discouraging conditions.
In the end, he was one of only three persons selected from the 48 candidates in his batch, to be trained overseas as commissioned officers. The other two were Dunstan Thompson, a nephew of Dudley Thompson and Stacy Thompson (not related), a past student of Wolmer's Boys. "I felt very fortunate to have succeeded and I grabbed the opportunity with both hands," Burrell recounts.
He was sent to do basic officer training with the Canadian Armed Forces at Chilliwac in the vast hills of British Columbia. Later he went to New Brunswick for combat training. He remembers a particular assignment when his squad of 10 was dropped off by helicopter in the middle of a snow-covered forest and told to find a point more than 100 miles from base.
They were given compasses, a backpack with small tins of high-protein ration, enough to last for five days, and told to survive anyhow they could. Says Burrell: "After the first two days in that cold, dark forest, I felt as if I was never going to live to return to sunny Jamaica."
They made it in four days. But they were a sorry sight to see with their blistered hands, swollen feet, cracked lips, and completely fatigued. Shortly after their arrival, a helicopter came with live chickens, one for each trainee. They were given fuel tablets and told to kill and cook the chickens in their mess tins. It was half-cooked when Burrell began to devour his.
"But it was the nicest piece of meat I had ever had," he says, recalling the unbelievable hunger pangs that shook their exhausted bodies as they fought their way through the thick growth of the forest interred in snow. "That is how I know human beings don't die so easily," Burrell chuckles in retrospect. He'd also learn to appreciate more the Jamaican sun every morning he wakes up.
Back at base, at Gage Town, "we were so fit and charged up that we closed down every discotheque in the town that weekend".
Operation Urgent Fury
In Jamaica once more, army life would seem like a cakewalk now. Speaking of which, while he was still in the army, Burrell and his wife had started a business, baking and selling cakes and other pastry from home.
They called the business 'Cake World'. This happened while he was stationed at the Newcastle base and in charge of training, at the rank of second lieutenant. There, Burrell tried out everything he had learnt in Canada. His favourite punishment was to have errant recruits roll the entire length of the parade square on the hot asphalt. He also liked to put them in a tear gas chamber and order them to take off their mask briefly and say their names. After a few times, every man became circumspect. His challenge was to transform recruits from civilians into soldiers in a matter of 10 to 12 weeks. Failure was not an option.
Burrell saw service in Grenada when the US launched "Operation Urgent Fury" in 1983, at the height of a coup d'etat against Prime Minister Maurice Bishop by hardline Maxist-Leninist members of his New Jewel Movement. The charismatic Bishop and some of his Cabinet ministers were assassinated and, with the neighbouring eastern Caribbean states in a flat panic, Dominican prime minister, Dame Eugenia Charles, telephoned US president, Ronald Reagan, asking for urgent help.
The Jamaican troops, about 100 or so at a time, went there to do mopping up operations, under the supervision of Colonel Ken Barnes, father of John Barnes, the first Jamaican to play for the English national football team. Burrell admires Colonel Barnes as "a great military leader". The Jamaicans did not see actual combat, but two were injured when an explosive went off by accident, he recalls. At the end, Burrell received the General Service Medal for service in Grenada.
'Boys' Town drill soldiers'
It transpired that Colonel Barnes was the man in charge of sports at the JDF when Burrell saw a humiliating headline in a newspaper, blaring out: "Boys' Town drill soldiers". Burrell was embarrassed. and livid. He went to Barnes and showed him the story, telling him that this was too shameful to be tolerated.
Barnes put him in charge of football, and Burrell got to work immediately. He recruited a coach, a civilian named Raymond Beek, and together they wrote a plan emphasising serious training. There were some who felt the whole thing was foolishness because winning the premier league trophy was way out of the reach of the soldiers. Burrell didn't bother to listen.
Within three years, the JDF football club were premier league champions and three of his players - Michael Tulloch, Eric Curry and Wayne Wonder - had made the Jamaican national team. The feat has not yet been repeated. But more importantly, Burrell had taken the first steps on a journey that, even he could not have known at the time, would blaze a historic trail of glory for his small island country.
History, often without explanation, reaches across time to touch the lives of a relatively small band of people, and endows them with a greatness beyond the sum of their individuality. Thereafter, they relentlessly follow a course that, at an appointed time, fires the imagination of entire nations and men call them great. Horace Garfield Burrell is among that cosmic elite. As if seeing what was to come, the Rotary Club had awarded him their highest honour, the Paul Harris Fellowship.
But Burrell had not seen the future quite as clearly. He had chosen to be a soldier by vocation, not knowing that his most torrid battles would be fought on the football field. For even as he dreamt of becoming a general in the Jamaican army, the god of football had appointed him as the man to unleash perhaps the single greatest outpouring of joy that the island had known up to that point in its history.
The final of the World Cup of football is reserved for giants, not dwarfs. Where does Burrell get off, dreaming that he could take this little David to do battle with the Goliaths of world soccer?
Yet, things that seemed to happen routinely in Burrell's life were often not routine at all. For example, on one occasion, he took the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) football team to Trinidad and Tobago. There he met the general secretary of the T&T Football Association, Austin 'Jack' Warner. Warner impressed him with "his vast experience and knowledge of football".
Burrell decided from then that he would keep in contact with Warner, who, over the years, was able "to provide me with his insight and to come up with smart solutions for tough problems". Just before the Captain left the JDF, Warner invited him to become a member of the executive of the 30-nation Caribbean Football Union (CFU). The relationship had been cemented.
The Captain's Bakery
This was 1985. Cake World by this time had outgrown its cottage industry status and was doing extremely well. Burrell had to make a decision. For the business to reach its full potential, he would have to put more time into it. He left the army and threw himself into the business of making dough, with his wife.
"It grew phenomenally and we established stores in Kingston, Spanish Town and May Pen," he reveals. But as the business soared, his marriage nose-dived. It came to a point that he and the woman he had loved, virtually from childhood, decided to split. She retained the company name and he used his assets to start The Captain's Bakery.
His first store was in downtown Kingston where he would stay with the staff, keeping the store open until midnight and interacting with them and the community. He makes special note of the fact that he was dealing with some of the "most loving, humble and honest people downtown".
The Captain's Bakery has since expanded to five other branches - in Cross Roads, New Kingston, May Pen, Montego Bay and Grand Cayman. Ground has just been broken for the establishment of a seventh state-of-the-art megastore in Portmore. In total, the business employs about 200 persons and Burrell thinks it is significant that nearly all the staff in Cayman, 15 in all and most from Jamaica, now drive their own cars.
Road to France
The year 1994 will reverberate in Jamaican history. It was the year that Burrell was elected president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF). That was preceded by many years in the administration of the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA), which he says had carried more clout than the JFF, under the "brilliant leadership" of people like Russell Bell and Billy Marston.
With obvious gratitude, Burrell recalls: "I learnt a great deal about the administration of football from serving with them during those years. In fact, all the powerhouses in the JFF had been drawn from KSAFA."
At the time, Burrell was still in the JDF, and in charge of football there. At the back of his mind, that cruel headline "Boys' Town drill soldiers" was playing wickedly. But he had taken the army's team to the top. Could he not do the same with Jamaica? Burrell did a two-year stint as JFF treasurer, on his way to the presidency. By the time 1994 had come around, this trained pilot had made up his mind about the dizzying heights to which he wanted to take Jamaican football.
"My interest in football grew while I was a member of the CFU, and being convinced about the ability of football to influence tremendous social changes in society. On that basis, I decided to offer myself for leadership of the JFF. I believed that Jamaica had an array of football talent and I knew that we could go places," he discloses. 'Places' meant the finals of the World Cup in France. By any reckoning, it was now clear. The appointed time had come.
Burrell's bid for the presidency was successful and he set about immediately to revamp Jamaican football. At that time, Jamaicans seemed satisfied with cheering for a World Cup team like Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy and the like. He vowed quietly that one day he would make them cheer for Jamaica. He crafted a plan and articulated a vision that he took to the country's private sector leaders, Government, Opposition and other influential groups.
He recalls how he had worked with Lincoln Robinson, a communications consultant, to put together a powerpoint presentation, with graphics and all, for a group of businessmen at the Sheraton Hotel, now the Hilton Kingston. Then he announced that the four-year budget was $104 million:
"They laughed so hard, you'd think a pantomime was going on. Some people were even ready at that point to leave the room, saying I was living in another world and they had wasted their time in coming. They were asking how could football ever expect to fund a budget of $104 million. Some thought it was more feasible to adopt a team."
But Burrell locked onto his vision all the more. He would not be diverted from the Road to France. "I believed in my people and I was prepared to go to the mountain top to achieve the vision," he recounts. He admits, however, that it was hard to find people who shared the belief that Jamaica could qualify for the World Cup finals. But he was confident that there was one man who would believe and, if he did, it would make all the difference. He would go to see him.
P J Patterson 'fly the gate'
Burrell's stout heart was beating faster than usual as he drove into the Jamaica House driveway. So much was riding on this meeting. Once inside, he calmed himself and prepared to meet the prime minister. Patterson was pleasant but appeared businesslike so Burrell got to the point. He told the prime minister he would need a Brazilian coach to take the football where it had never gone before.
No country had produced more football wizardry than this South American giant. He would need the PM's help to get such a coach. Patterson, as he is wont to do, listened without interruption and made notes, peering over his glasses all the time at this daring man. He thought to himself that this one was a tall order and the plan was overly ambitious. But Burrell seemed confident that it could be achieved.
Right at that time, Patterson had been thinking seriously about the moral values and attitude of the nation and he seemed to be reasoning to himself that if this visionary soldier could pull it off, it would put the nation in a mood to believe in itself. "I'll help," he told Burrell after much thought. Finally! The breakthrough had come. Burrell left Jamaica House with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.
Professor Rene Simoes of Brazil
Armed with a letter from Patterson to the Brazilian president, and accompanied by the knowledgeable footballer and youth coach, David Haughton, Burrell arrived in Brazil. Patterson's diplomatic people had firmed up arrangements ahead of time and he met soon after with the sports minister and other officials. They set up interviews with about six top coaches.
The one that impressed them most was Professor Rene Simoes and he was offered the job. Before he accepted, Simoes said he would have to visit Jamaica to see what the facilities were like. "When he saw the football fields, he said it would be impossible for him to take the job," Burrell recalls.
"Then we took him to a football match at Constant Spring and he was very impressed with the talent he saw. After we pressed him some more, he reasoned that it would be a challenge but if he could make a World Cup team out of what he had seen - something out of nothing really - it would be good for his CV and his own notoriety would spread." Simoes went back to Brazil, consulted with his family, won their support and returned to Jamaica to set the island firmly on the Road to France.
The Brazilian immediately put a structure in place, appointing a staff for the senior team, one for the Under-20s and one for the Under-17s, all of whom would qualify for their world finals. Wanting to involve as many of the local coaches as possible, Burrell says, he invited Carl Brown, who "pledged his support and gave it his best shot". The sports media liked Carl Brown and would worry a lot about how he was allegedly being treated as time went by.
Influx of England-born players
When the World Cup qualifiers began, it struck Burrell and the team that the locally-based players had gone as far as they could go and were facing elimination. By a master stroke, they brought in three Jamaican-born English football club players - Deon Burton, Paul Hall and Fitzroy Simpson. But they had a hard time getting more.
There were many other Jamaicans playing for English clubs and most had hopes of playing for the English national team. That might explain why they were reluctant to sign on to the Jamaican team. Then Burrell got an idea. "Robbie Earle was one of the most respected black players in England. If I could get him to sign up, the others might come. He was an inspirational player and would be just what the doctor ordered for the team," Burrell argued at the time. Earle, too, was hesitant and so he invited him and his family to Jamaica. With the help of Sandals, through Horace Peterkin, and SuperClubs, through Dr Errol Holmes, the JFF wined and dined the Earle family, "showing them a time they themselves admitted they had never seen before".
At the end of his five-day stay, Earle signed on the dotted line. And as Burrell had anticipated, it was easy to get other British-based players after that. The stage was now set.
The Reggae Boyz of Jamaica
This was 1996. As the Jamaican national team edged closer to qualification, a dreadful tragedy befell the high-riding Zambian football team in Africa. The plane in which they were travelling crashed, killing all members of the team. No one, of course, could be expected to make a connection between the terrible mishap and Jamaica's football.
But as Zambia mourned the loss of its talented sons, Burrell thought of a way to help soothe the pain and to pay Jamaican respects. He would take the Jamaican team to Zambia. Churchill Neita, who was chairman of INSPORT at the time, made the contact.
Expecting to arrive under a pall of gloom, the footballers and officials, led by Burrell, were met at the airport by a tumultuous crowd of Zambians chanting: "Welcome to the Reggae Boyz of Jamaica! Welcome to the Reggae Boyz of Jamaica!"
Burrell seized the moment. "From henceforth, the Jamaican national football team will be called the Reggae Boyz," he proclaimed in his speech acknowledging the warm reception the Jamaicans had received in a land from which their forebears had come. The name fit like a glove. It was sheer African genius at work. And with the blessings of the motherland, the Reggae Boyz returned to Jamaica, looking steadfastly towards France '98.
We're going to France
On November 17, 1997, Jamaica and Mexico met at 'The Office' - Jamaica's National Stadium. All Jamaica needed was a draw for the unthinkable to happen. A golden sun greeted the expectant Sunday morning. All day long Jamaicans could scarcely sit still. Motorists whizzed up and down the streets of the capital, honking their horns, their headlights flashing. The flag was flying on every handcart. Police blotters remained blank as criminals stayed home.
The stadium was transformed into a virtual sea of gold. By the time the Reggae Boyz took to the field, emotions had reached heart-stopping crescendo and the stadium could not contain it. The game ended 0-0 and Jamaica was in the finals of France '98. Oh sweet pandemonium! It was joy unspeakable! The roar that erupted from the stadium and every nook and cranny of Jamaica echoed in Brixton; Brooklyn; the Bronx; Toronto; Lagos, Nigeria; in the back streets of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, everywhere that any Jamaican found abode on the planet.
Burrell's dream had become reality! Sensing that this was a moment like no other, and remembering how he had kept faith with one determined Jamaican who had a vision, Patterson declared the following day, Monday, a national holiday to mark the attainment of this miracle.
"November 17 will remain one of my most memorable days," says Burrell now. "I will take the joy of this dream come true to the end of my days."
In the months before June 1998, Burrell, Simoes and the Reggae Boyz were the toast of the country. Reggae Boyz memorabilia appeared everywhere, as if out of nowhere. Everybody was lining up to offer support.
He singles out Sports Minister Portia Simpson Miller as a tower of strength from day one, travelling with the team and suffering with them, as in the case of El Salvador where she, along with the 10 Jamaican faithfuls, was "wet up with water and beer" by the fans there. He also recalls one night when a sticky problem came up and the Reggae Boyz were due to fly out the next day. Simpson Miller opened her door at midnight to meet with him, Simoes and JFF general secretary Horace Reid, another pillar of strength which the team could lean on. Reid, Burrell says, was the epitome of loyalty and commitment and had supported him through all aspects of his elevation. Burrell also pointed to the opposition leader, Edward Seaga, "who was second only to Mrs Simpson Miller in his support. and he never missed a home match".
The qualification for France snowballed, and Jamaicans overseas walked tall. In France, Jamaica was, sentimentally, everybody's number two team. It was a kind of football rags-to-riches story and the world loved this modern-day fairy tale. Jamaicans from all walks of life converged on the French towns where Jamaica played three matches before being eliminated. They reported that everywhere they went in France, ordinary people sought their autographs and island memorabilia, it was enough just to be a Jamaican.
Vendors sold all sorts of Jamaican trinkets and art and craft in the Metro (subway) stations. The spirit was high and reggae ruled France. Douglas Orane, the Grace, Kennedy chairman, was seen handing out special phone cards and encouraging people to call home with the result of the first match. Jamaica's first World Cup goal was scored by Robbie Earle! In the end, Jamaica was beaten 3-1 by Croatia, five-nil by Argentina but beat Japan 2-1, placing ahead of even the United States which came last in the 32-nation tournament.
Tea with The Queen, dinner with Nelson Mandela
A few months later, Burrell would have another crowning moment when he and a small group from Jamaica were invited to tea with The Queen of England at Buckingham Palace. She had wanted to meet with select members of the World Cup finalists from the Commonwealth. Burrell was astounded to find out in conversation with her, how much Queen Elizabeth II knew about Jamaica and Jamaicans.
Burrell recalls the conversation: "She said 'Oh what a fine fast bowler is Michael Holding. What did they call him again. the whispering death? It is good that Courtney Walsh has taken up where Michael left off.' Then she went on to say what a great athlete Merlene Ottey was. It was indeed a great moment for all of us there in the presence of The Queen at Buckingham Palace."
Some years later, Burrell would also experience another once-in-a-lifetime moment when he met and dined with the legendary South African hero, Nelson Mandela, at a function honouring Caribbean football in Trinidad and Tobago. Another Jamaican, Grace Silvera of Red Stripe, was also there, he notes. But how long could Burrell remain on cloud nine? Back in Jamaica, a jarring reality awaited.
A coup in the palace
As memories of the World Cup dalliance began to fade, the nation breathed again and went back about the business of everyday living. Simoes would return home with much of the shine rubbed off. A new Brazilian coach would come and go, summarily fired by Burrell after one too many losses by the team. And five years later, Burrell would face a palace coup within the JFF. This was 2003.
Men disgruntled with his style of leadership, but some of whom Burrell believes were motivated by petty jealousy, campaigned slyly - some say with hefty funds from undisclosed sources - eventually voting him out as president. It was a stinging defeat. Burrell had given total commitment to the dream, digging deep into his own pocket to put his money where his mouth was, willing to continue. and now this.
"But I took the results quietly and walked away in the interest of the continued development of Jamaica's football," he reveals. Yet, Jamaica's loss was the CFU's and CONCACAF's gain. Burrell has recently been placed at the head of the CFU's newly created marketing division, which has responsibility for all television and radio rights, all marketing arrangements and all sponsorship deals covering the 30 CFU countries.
Working with his team of Reid and Lola Chin Sang, he remains senior vice-president of the CFU. He is on the executive committee of CONCACAF, which governs football in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, making him, after Warner, the second most powerful man in football in the region. And he continues to serve on the disciplinary committee of FIFA's judicial body.
A place in history
If you didn't know it, you'd think Burrell is still the top man in football in Jamaica. It is his confident, self-assured presence that does it. He was there with the big guns of football in Paris last fortnight representing CONCACAF at FIFA's centenary celebrations. In football terms, he's a pauper who walks among princes. But you'd never know it.
There are countries in which, for lesser prizes, men have been made national heroes. From that single journey to the World Cup finals, interest in a growing number of Jamaican players is rising every day, especially in North America and the United Kingdom. And the spin-offs continue in tourism.
There is a newfound national self-belief that is already being taken for granted. Who will dispute it that this man, Horace Garfield Burrell, has given back his country its lost