Another excerpt from Usain's autobiography
This was going to be one the hardest meetings of my life, and I've met Mario Balotelli!
It was the end of the first week and I had some serious changes to make in the setup of the staff at Montego Bay United. I had reviewed their performance reports for the past season and there was some problems that would need addressing immediately if this team was to become the dominant force in Jamaica.
The staff filed into the board room with mixed feelings evident on their faces, some seemed worried and some seemed pleased to see me, one of the advantages of fame I suppose.
After the usual meet and greet, general chit-chat and other such pleasantries it was time to get down to business. I outlined the agenda and couldn't sugar-coat the fact that there was to be a 'who stays and who goes' element to this meeting. That soon put worried looks on all of the faces assembled… apart from my sister Sherine, who, acting as my PA knew that mom would be furious if she was one of the lay-offs.
I outlined the plan for the coming season, league hopes, cup hopes etc etc but couldn't delay the inevitable any longer.
"Gentlemen, I have been reviewing the resources available to the club and there are several areas where we are sadly lacking, not least of which, financially."
Now they started to look really worried…
"It is my aim to set this club on a path which will ensure it's future financially but to do that first there has to be some cut backs."
I then started the process of laying certain people off, a moment I had been dreading since I had called the meeting. First to feel the cut was Arturo Yee-Sing, our Head (and only) Physiotherapist. While a competent and fully qualified physio he wasn't managing to get our players back on their feet in a time scale I would expect. Having been involved in the sports world for most of my life I knew there were better options currently available for us.
Next was Christopher Anderson, our Head (and only) Scout. He had made too many bad calls on players in the past couple of seasons and simply didn't fit with the future vision I had for the club… not that I put it like that to him of course.
Finally Praveen Kennedy, our Head of Youth Development. While good enough at his job there simply wasn't room in the budget for a HYD and the Under-21's Manager we already had in place. Sadly, for Praveen, Hugh Soloman was more essential in the short term as he knew the youngsters inside and out and would be able to develop them himself just as well as Praveen could have.
I ensured that the people suddenly finding themselves out of a job were aware of the support the club would continue to offer as part of the redundancy package, as well as suggesting a few other clubs on the island I had contacted who were looking for people in these areas, I allowed them to head off to clear desks and inform their families.
That particular phase of the meeting over I wanted to move on to more positive things. I reassured the rest of the staff that their jobs were safe and outlined the extra-duties I was assigning them. Next up was to outline the new staff structure.
We would soon be joined by a new Physiotherapist, Rogerio Grajales, a man I had worked with when training in Jamaica in the past.
The scouting team was to be increased to it's limits, a new Chief Scout Marcus Valentine whose excellent grasp of tactical analysis would be pivotal to our match preparation. Under him would be Delane Shalhoub and Kirsh Lucas, both excellent at identifying current and future stars as well as having a great rapport with the youngsters coming through the various systems.
Last but not least we were finally going to have a specialist first team coach at the club, Jared Borgetti. His all-round abilities would hopefully compensate for the lack of help he would have… now all that was left to do was find a goal keeping coach, the only two on the island already had lucrative contracts with our rivals, typical!