The Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) will formally raise concerns at the upcoming World Athletics Congress in Tokyo about what it views as a growing and troubling trend - wealthier nations, including Turkey, targeting Jamaican athletes with large financial incentives to switch national allegiance.
Gayle was speaking at a press conference at the JAAA headquarters in Kingston on Monday ahead of this week's Jamaica National Championships set for June 26-29 from which Jamaica will select its team to the World Athletic Championships in Tokyo, Japan in September.
The move comes on the heels of the stunning decision by four of Jamaica’s top field event athletes – Olympic medallists Roje Stona, Wayne Pinnock, Rajindra Campbell and Jaydon Hibbert - to transfer allegiance to Turkey, just days before the National Championships.
JAAA Executive Member Ian Forbes didn’t mince words when describing the situation.
“We’re in mango season, mango season,” he said. “There’s that saying, nobody’s doing green mango. They want the ripe mango. It’s not surprising that they have gone for four of our athletes. The sport has changed. It’s still evolving. And I think World Athletics, and by extension JAAA and other federations, need to keep pace with the changing — the evolution — of the sport and preserving its integrity.”
Forbes added: “They recruit our coaches — and other coaches — and try and build. But it is obvious that Turkey’s strategy is to go for the financial inducement to get the athletes to switch. The sport has become a business. It’s not the favourite pastime thing of many years ago...so World Athletics need to look at the situation critically to see exactly what is happening and the fact that it can destroy the sport.”
JAAA President Garth Gayle confirmed that the federation is already working on a formal submission to be presented at the Congress in Japan.
“We will be putting it in black and white and sending it to World Athletics to be held at the Congress. And I will be taking a written copy to the Congress in Tokyo, Japan,” Gayle said.
“Jamaica’s voice will be [heard], and I’m sure I will be having quite a number of colleagues following with me on this motion.”
Gayle emphasized that discussions on the issue are already happening across the sport’s leadership and hinted that other cases like Jamaica’s may soon surface.
“There are discussions at the highest level about what’s going on or the resurgence of what we see happening — Turkey. We’re not the only one,” Gayle remarked. “We recently learned also of Nigeria. And who is to say if there are not others that will be coming out in short order between now and a particular deadline?”
The JAAA leadership expressed hope that the global governing body will consider not just the administrative mechanics of transfers but the ethical and economic imbalance at play.
“The athletes have a right to decide which direction they go. They have to look and ask, you know, what they think is in their best interest,” Forbes added. “One injury... and it can be over pretty quickly. So they have to look and make decisions that they think are in their best interests.”
Still, he warned, unchecked financial recruitment threatens to destabilize smaller nations that have long relied on grassroots development models.
“Last year it was over half a million for a gold medal. We do not have the resources. So what we have tried, we have built from the bottom — from basic school,” Forbes said before detailing the JAAA’s year-round investment in school meets and youth competition.”
Forbes concluded with a clear call for reform. “In football, you know, transferring from a club to another, there’s a transfer fee involved... I think World Athletics need to do the same.”