The Tyrone Mears affair, and more so the Jamaica Football Federation's (JFF) response to it, represents, perhaps, the perfect metaphor for the state of football in Jamaica.

It captures beautifully what once used to be a casual street phrase, but these days is more widely used by the image merchants to sell this country as a nonchalant, laid-back, carefree tourism paradise: "Jamaica, no problem".

Should anyone be unaware of who Tyrone Mears is, he is a UK-born professional footballer, who plays in the English leagues for Burnley. His record is not particularly remarkable, but he has ambitions to play internationally.

In fact, he has played one international match, for Jamaica, in February, for 71 minutes in a friendly against Nigeria. Except that Tyrone Mears was not eligible to play for Jamaica. Then Jamaican coach, John Barnes, thought he was. Mears himself also said he felt he qualified to turn out for this country, having assumed that his father was Jamaican, which would give him automatic citizenship rights.

Embarrassing debacle

Recently, through his own efforts, Tyrone Mears discovered that his father was actually from Sierra Leone. This, for most people, and certainly for any reputable national organisation with international affiliation, should be an embarrassing debacle. It betrays on the part of the JFF a failure of due diligence, which, on the face of it, is symptomatic of deeper organisational problems.

Indeed, Tyrone Mears captured the matter clearly and succinctly in a remark to a British newspaper. "I can't believe the Jamaican FA did not check into the registration process."

That the JFF didn't was bad enough. What, however, is worse is that the football authorities appear blissfully ignorant not only of the blunder, and in so far that it is aware that something went wrong believes it is, in another Jamaican saying, "no big thing".

Indeed, the JFF has made no official statement on the matter, leaving it up to "a top-level official", who commented anonymously to this newspaper that it was a "non-issue".

That Mears turned out in Jamaican colours, ostensibly as a legitimate representative of this country, was of no consequence since the game against Nigeria was a 'friendly' rather than an 'official game'.

Laying the blame

If the JFF does not routinely check the eligibility of players invited to represent this country, what else might it ignore and allow to fall through the cracks of inadequate management? Clearly, it is not enough to blame John Barnes for this egregious lapse.

If the JFF, as currently constituted, can so seriously blunder in determining who is qualified to represent Jamaica, it is small wonder that the national football programme is so shambolic, lacking in real foundation and structure.

Part of the failure, of course, is that the JFF concentrates almost solely on the end product - the glory of Jamaica, as happened a dozen years ago, reaching the finals of the World Cup. But the 1998 achievement wasn't sustainable if there is only the continuous grasp at glory in the absence of hard, structured work underpinned by serious management.