Ricky Chin

Waterhouse Flow Champions Cup knockout title holders and one of the country's top football teams, might not get a chance to defend their title after failing to honour their first match of the competition against Montego Bay United at Wespow Park yesterday.

Match commissioner Loraine Scringer confirmed that Waterhouse "did not show and the match was called off at 3:15 p.m.".

Waterhouse president, Ricky Chin, told a different tale, of how he tried desperately to have the match postponed, after realising late on Tuesday how badly his team was affected by illness associated with the chikungunya virus.

Waterhouse's repeated attempts, he said, were rebuffed by the Professional Football Association of Jamaica (PFAJ) because the club had missed the deadline to request postponement by about three hours.

This, Chin said, was unavoidable, as he had only realised the seriousness of Waterhouse's situation after four players turned up for 5 p.m. training on Tuesday.

Chin said he sent an email to the PFAJ at 6:05 p.m., on Tuesday, and followed up with a telephone call.

"At 6:05, on Tuesday, I sent an email to PFAJ asking for postponement, giving the following reasons. We had four players in the national side and majority of the team was still reeling from chik-V.

"I called PFAJ, spoke to Andre Roper, telling him, 'I just sent an email, make sure it goes to the right persons, requesting a postponement'.

"The next day, the PFAJ responded, saying the postponement was not granted. I contacted my general secretary to take over the situation by sending an email to PFAJ. This was done, but they said it still stood. Up to yesterday, I sent an email, explaining what was happening, they still didn't respond," he said.

Chin pointed out that even though Waterhouse also had four players away on national duty, which automatically made them eligible to request a postponement, the PFAJ would not budge from its position.

"Monday night, we only had 16 players. Our goalkeeper, Richard McCallum was icing his knee before the match, complaining of pain. He ended up not playing after the warm-up. He had chikungunya before. I had no idea that the pain lasted so long.

"Four players came to training Tuesday. We asked for a postponement at 45 hours, instead of stipulated 48. We didn't know we would have had a problem until we saw the training. We still had training planned for five.

"I am going to fight this. I won't roll over and die on this one," Chin insisted.

Meanwhile, efforts to reach Carlton Dennis, an executive of PFAJ, to shed light on the matter, went to naught as calls to his telephone went unanswered.

Yesterday's results

Arnett Gardens 0, Boys' Town 2

Reno 2, Rivoli 1

Humble Lion 0, Harbour View 1

Black Star 1, Tivoli Gardens