Wayne Thompson, the President of the St Thomas Football Association revealed that auditing issues had prevented his organisation from having its parish election which prompted the suspension of privileges by the ruling Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) today.

Both St Thomas and Trelawny were suspended after missing the August 31 deadline stipulated by the JFF in June, 2024. St Thomas is said to be one of the better run parish associations.

However, Thompson, who ran on Raymond Anderson’s losing slate against the sitting president Michael Ricketts in the JFF election, was philosophical.

“It’s not a bad thing because, the JFF now just need to be consistent to ensure that all the affiliates comply, because we really need to take the football to another level, including the JFF themselves,” he told Our Today.

“We need to show people on the outside that we can manage our affairs because that is the only way we’re gonna attract partnerships,” he explained.

“So, I don’t have a difficulty. But we have started with St Thomas and Trelawny not meeting certain timelines. I just think we just need to be very consistent right across the board that can only help to improve the football,” he reiterated.

Thompson, who has been the president of St Thomas for 15 years, said plans are afoot to have their election before November.

“So, we’re on our way and I’m hoping to complete the process before November,” he noted.

I think the real issue though was the delay that we encountered with the auditing process, because it took us a while to get a new audit firm to treat our accounts over a period of time.

“So that we have fixed working tirelessly to ensure that the elections are now held before November,” he added.

However, Thompson said he was a bit surprised that a press release was sent today that they were suspended.

“The JFF had written to us and we have responded expressing the challenges and that would have had the elections before November,” said Thompson.