7 News Belize

FFB Stalemate: No President Elected After 22 Rounds
posted (May 3, 2016)
In February, a very private fight in the FFB Executive went public. That's when, as viewers may remember, the then President, Ruperto Vicente, had to fight off an attempted suspension orchestrated by the members of his executive committee.

Sergio Chuc, Cruz Gamez, and Marlon Kuylen orchestrated what might be called a Palace Coup, because they say Vicente had been bad for football over his 4 year tenure as president. But FIFA over-ruled that suspension - pushing the contest for maximum power in the FFB to an election on Saturday April 30th.

It's the FFB's 9th Ordinary Congress - and it started around 10:00 am and finished at midnight - that's right, 14 hours later, after, get this: 22 ties to see who would be President, Ruperto Vicente or his challenger, Sergio chuc. And even after 22 rounds of voting, there was still a tie! Meaning that tonight, no new president has been elected

Our news team was the Princess Ramada Hotel up to the 11th round, without selecting a new president and a 2nd Vice President. We spoke to Kuylen who told us that it's the first time something like this has ever happened:

Marlon Kuylen, Sr. Vice President Elect - FFB
"I was elected in the first round and then they had to go to a second round, because they had an impasse whereby some of the other members got 10 each. Then in round two, two executive members were elected namely Shane Orio and Darlene Vernon. Since then then we are going into round 11 and the post of president and vice president have still not been able to be elected as yet because nobody wants to budge. For them to be elected you have to get 50% plus 1, which in this case would be 11 votes."

Daniel Ortiz
"Has this ever happened before in FFB history or is this the first time?"

Marlon Kuylen, Sr. Vice President Elect - FFB
"It hasn't happened before and I spoke to the representative of CONCACAF and he said he has never seen anything like this before either."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, is that an indication that both camps have been going through their rigorous campaigning trying to win support for themselves or is it an indication that the football community is divided?"

Marlon Kuylen, Sr. Vice President Elect - FFB
"I guess it would be a bit of both. We have people that are loyal to each camp and nobody wants to budge. I guess only time will tell, because at some point we start getting tired and some will say let's just get this over with."

Charlie Slusher, Representative - National A Team
"Either side thought that after one election or after one process of voting it would have been over. So I know this is very surprising even to all the candidates that it's going on for this long."

Daniel Ortiz
"Is this just a very robust election season or is the football community divided on which leadership they should trust?"

Charlie Slusher, Representative - National A Team
"I believe that is exactly what is happening, because it's a serious deadlock and even after 10 tries, 10 opportunity to vote over and over again, we are going on to the 11th and there is still a deadlock. So obviously you can see that there is some kind of division when it comes to who the voters really want to support or who they believe can rule the federation for the next 4 years."

In the end, after 22 rounds, the 20 delegates remained split 10 to 10 on who to choose for President: Vicente or Chuc. They also couldn't decide between Cruz Gamez or Jaime "Maito" Perdomo for Vice-President. So after 14 hours, and 22 rounds of continuous deadlock, the CONCACAF Rep consulted FIFA and they decided to adjourn the Elections to a later date.

Since Kuylen was elected as Senior Vice-President, it was decided that he will be the Acting President of the FFB until a winner can be selected either through an extraordinary congress, or by the regular congress scheduled for 2017.

Darlene Vernon and well-known goalkeeper Shane Moody Orio were also elected along with Kuylen as Executive Members.

They ran on Ruperto Vicente's slate, but now they have an acting President from the competing slate. That may seem to give Vicente an advantage in the decision-making process going forward, and he says he's still very interested in the job. Today though, he told us he was surprised at the outcome:...

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"I was surprised yes, because I thought that we had the election. Going into this election we had 14 votes. Someway something happened between 11pm Friday night and 9am Saturday morning, because Friday night we had 14 votes and Saturday morning we only had 10 votes. Many attempts were made to break the tie, but nothing happen. So we went the extra time and even in the extra time we could not break the tie."

Jules Vasquez
"Isn't that indicative of something, some deeper problem of a deep division?"

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"Well we can call it division. We can say it's because of division. Yes, it may be because of division. But it is a demonstration of people's desire - of people wanting who they want."

Jules Vasquez
"If you were an effective unifying leader, you would have been able to bring home a majority. Its only 20 people. It's not 300,000. Isn't that a symptom of your divisive (what critics say) style of leadership?"

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"Well my style of leadership have proven that it has not divided football. My style of leadership have taken football to new level in Belize."

Jules Vasquez
"We know there are options for an extraordinary congress. You can wait until the next congress, you can select people to fill the post. What would you prefer?"

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"FIFA has recommended that we either do an extraordinary congress or we wait until the ordinary congress next year. The extraordinary congress can happen within 60 days. The ordinary congress would have to wait until next year 2017. The congress members wants an extraordinary congress to get it over with and I believe we can get over the hump and have a president for the federation, because it is not good for the federation to be operating without an official president."

Jules Vasquez
"Would you offer yourself for that extraordinary congress?"

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"I will offer myself for the extraordinary congress if its drawn out and the way we are fighting for the position and the way it is being fought for, the way things are happening Jules, I don't think I would want to be a part of it, if football is going in the direction it is going now."

Jules Vasquez
"So you are saying you wouldn't wait around for an ordinary congress?"

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"I would not wait around if the present situation continues."

Jules Vasquez
"Now Ruperto, you've been doing this job fulltime for 4 years and then you wake up this morning and you don't have that job anymore. Do you have a feeling of being sort of in a suspended state?"

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"Not really. As I say I am a retired person. I am retired school teacher, I am getting my pension. So I will continue to live."

Jules Vasquez
"Are you concerned that being that Mr. Kuylen was not on your slate, he is an ally of Mr. Chuc. Now that he is running the affairs of the FFB and he is in the office, that he might say 'oh look what Ruperto did,' he might dig up some dirt on you and try to use that against you in an extraordinary congress."

Ruperto Vicente, Former FFB President
"Certainly in a football game anything can happen and in my conversation with Kuylen when I hand over to him - that is now his agenda. His agenda is moving forward with football."

And Vicente said he doesn't want to be around if a new leadership takes football down the wrong road, his opponent Sergio Chuc feels the same about Vicente! For right now, Chuc's ally, Marlon Kuylen is sitting in the number 1 seat as the Acting President. We caught up with Chuc in Belmopan this afternoon, and he told us that although he didn't win, he's satisfied for now, that a candidate from his slate is running local football. Here's how he explained it:

Daniel Ortiz
"Marlon Kuylen is now acting as president. Is he a part of your camp as is our information?"

Sergio Chuc
"Yes, precisely. Marlon was running as my senior vice president, so now he is acting as the president of the federation. Mr. Vicente is gone from the federation. So, hopefully we will start implementing some of the manifesto promises we had as part of our campaign manifesto. Marlon was an integral part in putting this document together. So it's part of his plan and he being my senior vice president on the slate, its more than likely that we will be working together to achieve as much as we could achieve in this year that he will be acting as president."

Daniel Ortiz
"Is this in your mind an indictment of Mr. Vicente's leadership, the fact that he couldn't get re-elected, that there was a deadlock between yourself and him. Is this a statement that he has lost the confidence of the delegates?"

Sergio Chuc
"Precisely, because he having the full resources, 100% of the resources of the Football Federation of Belize - he having everything, using it to his advantage - campaigning from north to south, east to west and he still could not convinced the members that he should be re-elected. So it's a complete indictment of him and that is why I guess he is not sitting in the office at this time."

Daniel Ortiz
"Does this election highlight the need for increasing the number of delegates or at least giving an odd number, because an even number both of you seem to have your staunch supporters in the delegates' voters and it caused a deadlock for 22 rounds?"

Sergio Chuc
"Certainly, this is something that we need to look at immediately and maybe something that we need to fix in our statutes. We need to call an extraordinary congress sometime during the year and present this as to the members that this need to be fix."

As you heard, Vicente says that FIFA could decide to call an extraordinary congress to finish the elections. Sergio Chuc says that right now they are not inclined to do that. They want to see how Kuylen will run the FFB. That means that if everything goes as planned, Kuylen could be in charge of the local football federation until next year around this time when the 10th Ordinary Congress is called.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize