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Back to business - Reggae Boyz to resume training in early August ahead of World Cup qualifiers

Published:Saturday | July 18, 2020 | 12:00 AMAkino Ming/Staff Reporter
Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz in a training session at the UWI/JFF/Captain Burrell Centre of Excellence on Tuesday, August, 27, 2019.
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The national senior men’s football team could be back in camp at the beginning of August to resume preparation for the upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers even though Concacaf has not released a schedule for the games.

President Michael Ricketts told The Gleaner that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) cannot run the risk of being caught off guard if the qualifiers are to be held this year. That means that the technical committee is making preparations for locally based players to start training.

“Concacaf has not made an announcement as to when they will start [the qualifiers],” Ricketts said. “But based on a pronouncement from the medical officer at FIFA, no international games will be played until January. But we could very well start having qualifiers late this year or early next year. And because we are not sure, we want to be as prepared as possible.

“We are trying to keep the players together for the rest of the year, particularly our locally based players until we get some kind of a green light from Concacaf.

“I have a meeting with coach [Theodore] Whitmore, the chairman of the technical committee Rudolph Speid, and the manager Roy Simpson next Thursday, and we will be looking in detail at how best we can start our preparation.”

Ricketts said that the JFF has done remedial work at the UWI/JFF/Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence to bring it up to standard with the new health guidelines from the Ministry of Health & Wellness amid the coronavirus pandemic and the venue is now ready to host the camp.

“The Ministry of Health gave us a protocol and we have tried our best to follow and the dorms are basically ready, and all things being equal, we should be able to start having camps in the first week in August,” he said.

Jamaica sit fourth in the Concacaf ranking and automatically qualified for the final stage of the World Cup qualifiers.

akino.ming@gleanerjm.com