WESTERN BUREAU:

THE ENTIRE domestic programme of the St James Football Association (StJFA) programme is in disarray and the association is laying the blame at the feet of new telecommunications company Claro, which the board claims breached a commitment to sponsor all its competitions.

"They (Claro) initiated discussion with us and offered to sponsor all our domestic football programmes for approximately $16 million," StJFA president Orville Powell told a press conference in Montego Bay yesterday. "After subsequent discussions, we finally settled on $10 million."

Powell said the STJFA was asked to prepare a contract by Noel Esty, head of communication and marketing at Claro, agreeing to the $10-million deal, which it did. He said Claro made some non-monetary modifications to the contract and send it back to the association for final approval.

"We signed the contract and returned it to Claro," said Powell. "They subsequently called us, requesting that we establish some 20 Claro stores as well as sign up of a 100 new clients for them per game. We told them that the request was not possible and was out of the scope of the discussion we had with them."

Cut previous ties

Powell said that after Claro had given them verbal and written sponsorship commitments, the association had, on the advice of Claro, cut ties with their previous sponsors. He said it, therefore, came as a major surprise to the StJFA last Friday when Claro communicated to them that it was withdrawing its sponsorship offer.

"We are now left without any sponsors and as a consequence we will not be able to stage any domestic competitions this season," said Powell, furnishing copies of the contract the StJFA had signed and returned to Claro as well as copies of emails detailing negotiations for perusal by the media.

In light of their present predicament, the StJFA is contemplating legal action against Claro as it feels that based on the documents in its possession, it has strong grounds on which to secure legal redress through the courts.

When Claro was connected for a comment yesterday, a spokesman at the communication and marketing department, who refused to disclose his identity, declared ignorance of the situation and said Estey, who he said was unavailable, was the best person to speak to.