Bahamas Football Report

The Bahamas will have a chance to improve on poor results as they play Turks and Caicos in a friendly match, and Dominica in the final match of 2018-2019 Nation's League play.

The Bahamas started off Nation's League play with three dismal results. Two losses against Belize and Antigua and Barbuda, as well as a draw with minnows Anguilla, ensure that The Bahamas maintains its position as the last place ranked team in FIFA's men's football rankings.

The absence of a qualified technical director and National team head coach calls into question the ability of those persons to make proper, independent decisions. Bahamas Football Report understands that Nesley Jean, who scored the Bahamas' only goal thus far in Nation's League play, is acting as head coach.
In BFR's opinion, Jean has the potential to be a qualified coach if he goes and gets more licenses, qualifications and experience. As it stands, he will only serve as a BFA puppet. If he does anything short of that he will likely find himself in the bad books.

The question right now is whether Jean will be able to select the team that he wants heading into March's matches against Turks and Caicos and Dominica. Back in May 2018, the BFA released a 40 man list of players invited to try out for the national team. Most of the players were under the age of 20, several under the age of 18. It was clear to any honest observer that the pool of players were too young, lacked experience, and would have made a great pool if the competition was u20 or u23. Instead, these developing footballers were thrusted into international men's competition, where many of them even lacked experience at the u17 national level. BFR thinks the BFA executive has had too heavy a hand in the selection of national teams. BFR also believes that national team spots are used to bribe players into silence because if they speak out they will be excluded by the BFA.

The Bahamas played Turks and Caicos twice in 2011 and beat them 10-0 on aggregate. Unlike the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos has recorded a win in Nation's League play. They beat St. Vincent and the Grenadines 3-2 back in November.

Turks' recent positive result may not be an accident. They have a head coach with NCAA Division one coaching experience, and they've just hired a slew of Jamaican coaches to guide the country's football program. Included in that recently engaged group of Jamaicans is a former u17 Reggae Boys coach. To put things into perspective, The Bahamas' technical director is a former P.E. teacher with no international coaching experience.

The Bahamas Football Association.'s Annual General Meeting is scheduled for October 10th. Among the items on the agenda are whether Renegdes FC and Baha Juniours FCwill be allowed to vote in the association's elections, which are to be held the same day. We understand that the incumbent President Anton Sealey will run against Jason Mcdowall. All this while the Bahamas prepares to play Antigua and Barbuda on October 12th and foreign jurists decide a dispute between a Bahamian footballer and our FA.

Loads of updates coming so stay tuned.

BFR IS BACK!

We've been gone for a while and were hearing a lot of grumbling from the football community. Allow us to be clear- Bahamas Football Association, we know that you are a group that lacks strong leadership. We know you prefer favouritism to merit based rewards. We also know that you will lie and use threats to control your players. Well, some of your players are apparently not afraid. They dont care about playing in your non competitive leagues. Their goal in football is to have you REMOVED from office. Well, we at Bahamas Football Report must agree! Fred Lunn, General Secretary, your corrupt ways will be your demise. Jason Mcdowall- we have observed you from a distance and it is clear that you have allowed Lunn to lead you down a path of destruction. Any BFA official who's name we havent called- your inaction will be your downfall. The football community is tired of you. PLEASE STAY TUNED TO THIS PAGE FOR THE TRUTH ABOUT FOOTBALL IN THIS COUNTRY- WE PROMISE YOU WONT REGRET IT.

BEACH SOCCER NATIONAL COACH CLAWS BACK CONTROL OF TEAM

WITH JUST A FEW WEEKS TO GO UNTIL THE BEACH SOCCER WORLD CUP, WORD HAS REACHED OUR DESK OF A MAJOR CHANGE TO THE TEAM'S MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE. TEAM COACH ALEX SOARES HAS BROUGHT ON HIS LONG TIME ASSISTANT COACH, APPARENTLY RENDERING OTHER TEAM STAFF USELESS, OR RELEGATING THEM TO OTHER DUTIES (NOT COACHING). ACCORDING TO SOURCES CLOSE TO THE TEAM THE NEW ASSISTANT IS A NO-NONSENSE CHARACTER AND A CLOSE CONFIDANT OF SOARES DATING BACK TO THEIR DAYS COACHING BRAZIL. ACCORDING TO THE HIGH LEVEL SOURCE THE BRAZILIAN MADE TWO DEMANDS OF THE BAHAMAS FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION AFTER THE CONCACAF BEACH SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIPS. THE FIRST DEMAND WAS BRINGING IN HIS LONG TIME ASSISTANT, WHILE THE OTHER WAS A MANDATE THAT TRAINING WOULD BE HELD AT THE STADIUM EVERYDAY, AS OPPOSED TO JUST ON WEEKENDS AS PLANNED BY THE BFA. YES, YOU HEARD US CORRECTLY..WITH JUST MONTHS BEFORE THE BIGGEST COMPETITION IN THE SPORT OF BEACH SOCCER, BFA OFFICIALS WANTED THE SQUAD TO TRAIN AT THE TRAINING FACILITY AT ARAWAK CAY (A POORLY DESIGNED PITCH OF VERY LOW STANDARDS) AND NOT AT THE NEWLY BUILT WORLD CLASS STADIUM. WELL DESPITE THE ASSOCIATION'S POOR PLANNING, IT LOOKS LIKE SOARES GOT HIS WISHES AND THE TEAM APPEARS TO HAVE HIT A STRIDE, ALBEIT A LATE ONE, HEADING INTO APRIL'S COMPETITION.

Artificial Turf is a great alternative to real grass for countries with cold climates. For the Bahamas however, its almost unnecessary.

We at BFR take exception to the fact that all BFA league games at youth and senior level are played on an artificial turf. In a country with a tropical climate, that is unacceptable. Once upon a time the leagues were played on grass- I think that was a time when the football leadership had a better idea of what was needed to develop the sport. Today, the Sr mens league suffers, partly due to the fact that there is no concept of home and away games.

Allowing the mens league (and possibly youth leagues) to play matches at their home venues would encourage more community participation in the sport, while also bringing competitive matches back on real soil.

We cant always take the cheap approach, especially when we get so much money from FIFA that we turn down money from the Bahamas Olympic Commitee.

Former beach soccer national player speaks out!! He says we could use his identity but we dont want to take away from his words.

Hey BFR

I dont mind if you share my identity but I would like if you share my story. I was a part of the Beach soccer national selection pool up until about January of this year. I travelled to switzerland with the team last summer and was extremely committed to beach soccer. I always knew that the BFA didnt value the players. Getting water at training is never a guarantee and the team gear is all generic FIFA branded garments(free stuff). As a player its tough to deal with an administration that doesnt care about you, but we all love footy right? I told myself all the crap would be worth it when the new coach came in November. Sadly I was mistaken. While the coach (Alex Soares) has coached Brazil to 4 world cup titles, he doesn't really seem to understand what's needed when coaching a smaller team like The Bahamas. BFR, these guys did everything they could to influence the coach into picking players they like, and sadly it must not have been hard for them. I saw your post about the medicals...yea right..you correctly stated that that wasnt the case. There were a few players in particular who they have a real problem with and they made sure they didnt make the team. I know coach was especially fond of one of the guys who they didnt let play, so Im not sure how he feels with the BFA messing with his selections. Anyways...Ill say one more thing. God dont like ugly. That concacaf tournament that everybody was so excited about... the players know they werent being genuine. Belize, Guyana and Jamaica are no match for The Bahamas in beach soccer. I could have picked a team of guys who didnt play in the tournament and beat those teams. No bs. But it all revelaed itself in That quarterfinal match against Guadeloupe...we couldnt have had an easier quarterfinal, and i dont think we ever will. The first bit of pressure that team faced and they cracked. Why? Not because Guadeloupe is better than us. They arent anywhere near our level. Its because God dont like ugly and he wont reward you for doing things the ****** up way. The team's leaders never speak up for their fellow teammates. The team is actually a disgrace in my eyes. Anyways BFR, thats my five cents.

Once again our inbox is full of information...without the entire soccer community this wouldnt be possible. We wont say much today except;

1) Some of the beach soccer players are concerned that they are being associated with our page. They love what were doing but want us to clarify that they aren't involved. To whom it may concern, we have little birds everywhere and Nassau is a small nest.

2) we are near certain that the claims made by Jason Mdcowall in the Tribune are completely false. We aren't surprised that the BFA would distort the truth however why did the TRIBUNE fail to substantiate his account of what happened.

Stay tuned for more.

The BFA responds to Bahamas Football Report in yeaterdays Tribune.

When Bahamas Football Report saw who responded to our claims, we were quite surprised. We were certain that Fred Lunn would be the one to speak on this issue-or maybe BFA President Anton Sealey. We were very surprised to see Jason Mcdowall responding and quite frankly we dont know what to make of his comments. In summary, Mcdowall insists that the strongest team was selected, then goes into details about how "one or two players" werent medically cleared and "4 others who did extended medical tests. This is the confusing part- these arent the kinds of tests that you just re-take until you pass. Is the beach soccer team full of sick players? If you have five or six players failing medical exams that is a sign of extremely poor team health. Something doesnt sound right there.

Bahamas Football Report can't say for certain what's happening within that team, but based on those comments, it doesnt sound like the strongest side was selected for that tournament.

P.s.
Our 3 part series will continue tomorrow

Part 1

THE BAHAMAS GRASS NATIONAL TEAM HASNT PLAYED A MATCH IN 2 YEARS. THE LAST TIME THEY DID, THEY WERE LED BY AN UNQUALIFIED CLUB COACH TO BACK TO BACK DEFEATS AGAINST BERMUDA. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS; NATIONAL TEAM COACHES AROUND THE WORLD USUALLY BOAST AN 'A' OR 'B' COACHING LICENSE- A SYMBOL AND SURITY OF THEIR EXPERTISE AS A COACH. WERE NOT EVEN SURE IF THE LAST GRASS FOOTBALL NATIONAL TEAM COACH HAD A 'D' LICENSE. BUT WHY WOULD THE BFA APPOINT AN UNQUALIFIED COACH TO LEAD THE NATIONAL TEAM INTO WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS? WE THINK ITS BECAUSE THEY HAD NO INTENTIONS FOR THE TEAM TO DO WELL. WE THINK IT WAS THEIR WAY OF KILLING OFF THE PROGRAM WHERE THE BAHAMAS IS NOW RANKED BOTTOM IN THE WORLD. LITTLE DO THEY KNOW THAT YOU CANT DEVELOP HIGH LEVEL BEACH SOCCER PLAYERS IN THE FUTURE IF THEY YOU DONT BUILD PLAYERS WITH A VERY STRONG GRASS FOUNDATION. LITTLE DO THEY KNOW THAT ALL THESE RESULTS AND DECISIONS ARE A PURE REFLECTION OF THEIR INCOMPETENCE.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 OF THE SERIES TOMORROW, AND FRIDAY FOR THE BIG FINALE.

The BFA has a track record of hiring UNQUALIFIED individuals to fill key roles in their organization. Tomorrow, we begin a 3 part series shedding light on some of those decisions.

NEVER FORGET- YOUTH PLAYERS UNFAIRLY SUSPENDED

We see some people questioning the timing of our page's existence and we understand it isn't convenient to have negative publicity at a time when progress is imminent. However with the football community growing faster than ever, it is imperative that more is done to keep newcomers informed about what really goes on behind the scenes. For example, do many of you know that in 2015, 5 clubs, including their youth teams, were suspended by the BFA for attempting to reorganize the youth league structure for the youngest players. The BFA was fully aware of the situation and even provided some input. HOWEVER WHEN THEY REALIZED THE POTENTIAL POWER THEY WERE HANDING OVER, THEY PANICKED AND SUSPENDED THE TEAMS ORGANIZING THE LEAGUE. THIS AFFECTED NEARLY 800 YOUTH PLAYERS WHO WERENT ALLOWED TO PLAY IN THE LEAGUE OR TRY OUT OUT FOR NATIONAL TEAMS.

What makes matters worse is that all the suggestions made by those 5 teams were fully implemented this year. So they suspended them, then took their advice. Something doesn't sound right.

Our goal on this page is to keep those in charge accountable to their constituents. Our goal is to free the BFA from the clutches of the old guard.

In this article from May of last year, BFA General Secretary Fred Lunn tells the Nassau Guardian that non Bahamian players used in international friendlies against Switzerland wasnt a violation because the matches weren't official. BAHAMAS FOOTBALL REPORT SAYS THAT IS A LIE. Mr. Lunn knows full well that those matches were official and that The Bahamas was docked points from their beach soccer ranking for fielding non-national players. Only God knows why Mr. Lunn would field those players-clearly he wanted to keep them involved with the national program, but why clearly break the rules?

According to sources close to the team these Non-Bahamian players were promised citizenship by Lunn- a promise that has yet to materialize. Some players viewed it as an intentional move to reduce team unity by keeping players in the program with ulterior motives. These players were allegedly more likely to comply with the BFA and turn a blind eye to incidents of player mistreatment and administrative misconduct.

Fred Lunn should keep his promises instead of telling lies to the media and taking advantage of his players vulnerabilities. Whether or not those players will receive citzenship is yet to be seen, but our guess is that Mr. Lunn never intended to help regularize them.

This isnt the end of the story. More and more people are speaking out about injustices they experienced as a result of this BFA's leadership.

Inbox us your stories. We will share them.