Amateurs - Former PFAJ chairman considers local football’s semi-pro status in Jamaica U22’s 9-0 loss
Published:Tuesday | December 31, 2019 | 12:42 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
Former chairman of the now-defunct Professional Football Association of Jamaica (PFAJ), Don Anderson, says Jamaica’s slow pace towards professionalising the nation’s top football league could have been indirectly responsible for the 9-0 drubbing its Under-22 team received from their Japanese counterparts, in a friendly international match on Saturday.
While the match, played for the Kirin Challenge Cup was a one-off result, Anderson says the disparity between the J-League (Japan’s Premier League), which is professional, and the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL), Jamaica’s semi-professional top flight competition, is obvious.
Anderson, spearheaded the PFAJ’s push to bring local football in line with Concacaf’s mandate to get nations across the region to professionalise their top football leagues by this year. Professionalising the RSPL would mean that each clubs’ players would have full-time professional contracts, rather than their current part-time deals, which in other words means their sole profession is football. It would also mean a revamp of club structures to ensure that each club has its own venue and separate training facilities, as well as established scouting networks and academies, among other implementations.
But Anderson doesn’t think Jamaica is making fast enough progress.
“That 9-0 defeat was shocking to everybody,” Anderson said. “We are not beyond getting 9-0, but it was the preparation, so that 9-0 defeat will not be repeated. The absence of professionalism means this can happen but I would not say there is a direct relation between the fact that we are not as professional as we should be, and the score. We can’t draw that line. But I believe the absence of a more structured approach to our football means we’re at risk of not making the strides we should be making. So a more professional management of our football will stand us in good stead, locally, regionally and internationally.”
Full professionalism
Anderson argued that full professionalism can only enhance Jamaica’s football product.
“Concacaf mandated we go professional as fast as we can,” he says. “We met [with Concacaf] in 2017 and the timeline was 2019, and I believe we were making progress. But other improvements were required. But that requires a lot of money. We tried to make progress and meet the expectations and instructions from Concacaf, but we didn’t go far enough.”
However, for Jamaica to bridge that professional gap, Anderson says much more financial investment is needed.
“Things need to step up, it needs lots of cash to make that transition from where we were in June 2019 (before the PFAJ was dissolved), to where Concacaf wants us.
“It’s a big challenge but to bring us to real professionalism demands a lot of money, marketing, sponsorship, improved infrastructure, accounting and such and I don’t think we have gotten there, so there is a lot of work to do.
“The JFF’s (Jamaica Football Federation) role is to supervise and oversee all this and they should be concerned if the progress is not being made towards the Concacaf mandate. They may be relegated to a lower league and Concacaf can exercise stricter penalties on clubs that don’t comply with the professional pathway. So it must be of concern to the JFF that [the league] is not being professionalised to the extent or the pace based on Concacaf’s mandate, and where everybody can be happy that progress is being made to bring our football up to par with professional leagues around the world,” he said.