On Monday's newscast, you heard the position of the Football Federation of Belize in trying to get the country's premier striker, Deon McCaulay, back home to play for the National Team. The Jaguars are set to play the Dominican Republic in 10 weeks' time, but according to FFB president Ruperto Vicente, if McCaulay wants to play on the National Team, he'll have to pay for his own transportation to get back from the US.

Vicente explained on Saturday that because McCaulay is not signed to any international football clubs, he is ineligible by FFB rules to be brought home using Federation money. But football fans are clamouring for McCaulay to be a part of the team, but he's told persons that he can't afford to come home. So, a group of fans, who call themselves the Associations of Belize Concerned with Getting Deon Home have started a dollar drive to raise the money required to get him on the national team. They want to put together $5,000 by Friday at least, which would pay for McCaulay's ticket as well as the stipend paid to professional players weekly. We caught up with 2 of those fans taking on this initiative, and they explained how you can help.

Jamel Wagner – Fund Raising For Deon McCaulay

"After the Press Cadogan sports show on Sunday, I posted a comment on Facebook tagging a few friends. After I did that, we had a big conversation. The comment basically was - we need to kill this conversation very quick and get a dollar drive started and bring Deon home. Get a plane ticket for him and bring him home. FFB say they can't by their rules, can't being Deon home. They can't buy the ticket, so I said - alright, why don't we just get a dollar from us Belizeans, show them how to do it and bring Deon home. After that, a lot of comments came in, a lot of conversation happened. By Monday evening, we got in contact with people who could have contacted Deon. Spoke to Deon, he said he is healthy, he's ready to come, he can prove that he's healthy, he wants to come and he is here to put in hundred percent."

Cordelia Belizaire – Fund-raising for Deon McCaulay

"He is committed that as long as we can get him here and get the finances needed to cover him over the next 10 weeks while he'll be here in Belize and as well travel to the Dominican Republic to play with the Jaguars. That he will do his best. He wants to play, he has no obligations, he wants to be a part of the team. It's just that he can't do it own financially."

Jamel Wagner

"We spoke with a couple of the managers of team players on the Jaguars. The managers of their personal clubs. They said they have a few players on the national team and while they are on the national team, they're still getting paid weekly stipends of 300 dollars. We asked Deon if he was okay with that, he said yes he is okay with that, so we want to get that to him. The entire sum is 5,000 dollars. 1500 dollars for the plane ticket, we checked it yesterday online and it was 750 ode US - we don't know if it will change but that's what we saw yesterday. 3,000 for 10 weeks - 300 dollars at 10 weeks. This is the entire period starting from next week up until the end of the 2nd round - that's 300 dollars a week. There is 500 dollars just in case we need to change the price of the ticket. We are looking for if we can get dollar pledges - it would be perfect if we could 1 dollar pledge from 5,000 people. That means we have 5,000 persons behind us. If we can't get that, we're still accepting more. If you can afford more then put more."

The ABC Deon fans will be camping out at Semi-pro games asking fans to donate as much as they can, and at least a dollar. Additionally, persons who would like to make pledges can deposit money into the Atlantic Bank account number 211-569-202. Additionally you can reach Jamel Wagner at his cell phone number 626-7344. We'll check back with this group to find out how close they are to reaching this goal.