JFF to pull France ‘98 blueprint for 2026 World Cup goal

WESTERN BUREAU:

INTENT ON returning Jamaica’s senior men’s football team to the FIFA World Cup, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) aims to pull up the blueprint used by the late Captain Horace Burrell to have the Reggae Boyz qualify for the 1998 tournament in France.

Michael Ricketts, president of the JFF, said the ‘Road to France’ programme is a model worth replicating globally as he underlined the impact of the Reggae Boyz’ France ’98 qualification and the federation’s determination to qualify for the 2026 Men’s World Cup, especially as it will be hosted by Concacaf.

“The programme leading up to the qualification to the World Cup in France was one that the world could copy. I think Simoes (Rene) and his team were intent in getting us to the World Cup,” said Ricketts.

“I think Captain Burrell (Horace) would have done such an excellent job. I mean, a number of persons scoffed at the idea that Jamaica could go to the World Cup then,” Ricketts recounted.

Burrell, the former long-reigning JFF president, masterminded a series of unprecedented moves, many of them marketing, after taking the mantle from Heron Dale in June 1994.

Firstly, he established a core national squad and maintained preparation throughout with ongoing camps, with Carl Brown as head coach. It must be mentioned that Horace Reid was the JFF’s general secretary at the time and Burrell’s right-hand man.

A base was established for the Jamaica men’s senior football team and the players largely lived there, in the quiet settings at Upper Shortwood Road in the Norbrook area. At the time, most of the players in the national set-up were playing with local-based clubs, so it was easier to facilitate this live-in preparation and GraceKennedy stepped in to lead the food and nutrition programme.

However, Burrell also made moves to engage Jamaican professionals in the live-in setup and was instrumental in drafting one of the country’s leading players, Walter Boyd, who would become the leading scorer for the France ’98 campaign, to give up his contract and stay home in the team’s full-time preparation.

Of course, funding was a major thrust and this was secured from the Government and private sector. International engagement in practice matches took off and the Jamaica team continued to strengthen its base that was building from the turn of the ‘90s with what could be classified as a golden generation of players, marked by the then landmark third-place finish at the 1993 Concacaf Gold Cup.

Continuing along the ‘Road to France’ campaign under Burrell’s tenure, the number of practice matches soared and so, too, the wins. More practice matches meant more travelling and an airline partnership was secured with American Airlines.

Soon after, Burrell strengthened the coaching staff with Brazilian Simoes, who quickly moved next to Burrell and Reid as the face of football in attracting corporate and government support. Simoes also made some key moves in having football officials across the country arrange practice matches in each parish, from which he would draft players into the national pool, to sift for the World Cup group.

With each win, the programme took on a more defined shape and as the team started to take on its own personality, it also influenced its name, the Reggae Boyz.

Accolades for winning FIFA’s Best Mover of the Year in 1996 eventually served in catapulting the team and gaining support on the historic World Cup platform.

Burrell, who attended Clarendon College, was a Clarendon man, and Ricketts, who worked on his JFF executive for practically all the time he was in charge, is a close ally and Clarendon man too. So he would have seen his work first-hand and have ideas on how to develop or advance a blueprint that literally opened the door for Jamaica to the world football stage.

“Since then, we’ve been to two Women’s World Cups consecutively, which is no ordinary achievement, then two Under17s and an Under-20. So we’ve been able to replicate at the other levels, but not at the senior men’s,” Ricketts observed.

Jamaica’s virgin Under-17 and Under-20 World Cup appearances occurred right on the heels of France ’98, at FIFA’s junior tournaments in New Zealand (Under 17, 1999) and then Argentina (Under-20, 2001).

“That particular era would have so positively impacted Jamaica’s football because … so many persons thought it was a pipe dream and that it wasn’t even possible for us to get to the World Cup,” Ricketts reminisced. “But that would’ve changed the entire culture, the entire psyche of those in Jamaica who actually played football, those who actually were around the sport then.

“We would’ve been so positively impacted. The social impact was so great and Jamaica was like a totally different nation when we qualified for France in ’98,” the JFF president added.

Following the France ’98 qualification, then Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, immediately declared a national holiday, the Monday following the Reggae Boyz’ final qualifier on November 16, 1997 against Mexico at the National Stadium in Kingston, to mark the historic achievement.

“We’ve not yet been able to replicate that,” said Ricketts, referencing the senior men’s national football team’s failure in decades to earn a World Cup spot.

The Reggae Boyz will next get a chance to participate at global football’s biggest championship in 2026, when it’s held by Concacaf countries Mexico, United States and Canada.

“We will do everything because we understand the intensity of the work that is needed to get to the World Cup,” Ricketts admitted. “It’s no walk in the park, it’s not easy, it presents challenges. It really needs commitment, it needs loyalty, it needs partnership – your coaching staff, your players, the JFF must operate as a unit if we want to get to the World Cup.”

audley.boyd@gleanerjm.com