CRENSTON BOXHILL'S turbulent reign as president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) is at an end. Last Thursday evening, the embattled Boxhill, who started the job with the JFF heavily indebted to the tune of nearly $30 million, declared that he would not seek re-election when the federation elects a new executive on November 4.

A former team manager of the Reggae Boyz, which qualified for the World Cup Finals in France, 1998, Boxhill won a bitterly fought election to take over the JFF presidency from Captain Horace Burrell in November 2003. Ever since, Boxhill's every move has been challenged. In the second year of his administration, he survived a no-confidence vote at the JFF annual conference, the majority of the votes against him not reaching the required two-thirds margin. Even so, with close to two years left in his four-year term, the writing was pretty much on the wall.

In the meantime, the JFF's finances were getting better as it gradually reached stability with debt erosion. It was less aggressive in its approach to hosting friendly internationals and the utilisation of Jamaica's better talent, its professionals, who ply their trade in Europe's world-class leagues, and North America.

As a consequence,team performance, which could have quietened the voices and healed some of the wounds within the fraternity, suffered - a factor mirrored brightly, but painfully, by the failure to qualify in successive World Cup Final bids. Jamaica is now ranked at 97th in the world, its lowest ever FIFA rating in over 12 years.

Yet, the nation's talent proved how underrated it really is as just weeks ago in Brazil, the Under-20 team won the silver medal at the Pan American Games. It was the first time that a Jamaican football team had ever won a medal at the Games, having beaten the likes of Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, on the way to its gold medal match with Ecuador.

The Pan-Am Under-20 team's success represented one of those fleeting moments that came few and far between and added some amount of strength to the Boxhill mission for youth development. Yet, failure in the senior regional competition against regional minnows last year, with elimination in a four-nation preliminary tournament at the National Stadium in Kingston - one that also meant no Gold Cup this year - only added fuel to the fire.

In announcing his intention not to seek re-election, Burrell listed the deep divisions within the football fraternity and the level of influence that Captain Burrell holds over football because he sponsors most of the parish leagues. But Horace Reid, the former general secretary of the JFF, refuted that claim, saying Boxhill's withdrawal was prompted by the fact that he does not have the support of the delegates because 11 of the 13 parish associations have already nominated Captain Burrell. A candidate for any elected position must be nominated by at least three parish associations.

The Reggae Boyz of the 1998 'Road to France' campaign excited national spirit like no other sporting team ever did. With the qualifiers for South Africa beginning in the first quarter of next year, we hope that the football band will be playing the same tempo to ensure the team a realistic chance of making it 'Back to Africa'.