Ricketts outlines plans as CFU exec member

Jamaica Football Federation President Michael Ricketts says that he is eager to share expertise and build strong relationships to grow the game in the Caribbean as a member of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) executive committee.

Ricketts was elected to the body unopposed at their annual conference in Florida earlier this month.

He emphasised the importance of the CFU having a unified front in advancing the football profile of the region, and says that he will be looking to assist in helping the region’s youth programmes.

“Jamaica is undoubtedly the strongest of all the Caribbean countries as it is now,” Ricketts told The Sunday Gleaner. “So we certainly would need to share our expertise, share some of the models that we would have instituted that would have made us as strong as we are.

“So we want to help to build, especially, our youth programmes across the Caribbean. We want to have some bilateral arrangements so that we share our different skills and to ensure that we form an alliance that we will be strong as a unit, as a [region].”

It is an alliance that Ricketts says will see benefits to Jamaica as long as there is a great working relationship between the member associations.

“It therefore means as a unit, once we speak with one voice, then we are strong,” he said. “So we just need to galvanise the support among each of the 31 countries and speak with one voice, form an alliance, and we can certainly get things done.”

Additionally, Ricketts hopes to lend assistance to restarting football competitions in the Caribbean. The 2020-21 Jamaica Premier League is underway after a 15-month hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

CFU President Randy Harris welcomes Ricketts into the executive body, saying that with Jamaica, he can provide assistance to the CFU’s goal of having a professional structure for all of its member associations.

“Jamaica is one of the few countries in the Caribbean with a professional league and we, especially those of us in the southern Caribbean, are looking in this direction because we are at a disadvantage playing football against people who are participating as part of a career,” Harris said. “I look forward to some pretty good exchanges with Michael as we begin this term of the executive committee.”

The Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago are some of the other countries that have a professional top-flight league.

daniel.wheeler@gleanerjm.com