JAMAICA’s and OTHER SMALL NATIONS FOOTBALL PROGRAMMING CRISIS –TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Ordinarily, well thinking people even when they love football, do not sit down to write a “Dear Mom” letter on a sweltering Friday afternoon such as this one. It is now 5:12 pm.
If I could get Sir Allan Cole to join me, I would go juggle a ball in Half Way Tree square to highlight this matter, except I do not believe it to be a critical indicator of the players capacity for high performance in a game.
However, if you are aspiring to be a baller, the balance and bi-lateral competence developed from this youth activity will do good, but coaches must be mindful of unintentionally fixing the skill of playing the ball up when it is not required; surely that is not the cause for our present concern.
But someone has to flare up in the heat of the headlong tumbling of our National Program, from the lack of know how that could break our fall and lead us to visionary planning and implementation of forward programming that will get the best out of our football minded youth. They have a right to qualified leadership, and someone has to demand it on their behalf, but someone has to identify the problem and the steps to cost-effective sustainable solution.
Forecasted Return
How dare we to be planning to facilitate unknown potentiates to fill ‘gaps’ in our program and team, for any impending competition when we have already made the investment in management, coaching and competitive programming!
We must demand a forecasted return on our current investment in football, but there is no way to do it without a Soccer Performance Management and Appraisal System and Qualitative Performance Assurance Measurement tools in place, supported by qualified consultation and staff training.
I am 100% certain of the quickest way this can be achieved for ensuring clubs and countries/National programs acceptable return on their investment in Soccer/Football. The problem is that it will require a big stick too heavy to be lifted to get the Leaders to read, internalize and implement the “100 Principles for High Performance Soccer/Football Club Development Leadership [Coaching] and Quality control” manual.
With such resource available to all Clubs and Countries, why are we publicly admitting that we are incapable of preparing a high performance team for international competition in football? That, I believe, is the primary objective of whatever plans, investment, hope, pride and destiny we must be seeking as a Nation in any Sport… we are paying for this!
This week 10 year old Rhianna Ross, the Jamaica Badminton starlet, is startling China with the quality of her game; Coach Andrew Ross must be lauded for his quite outstanding work in building champions of international quality. We have already been able to hit and sustain the high performance mark in training Cricket, Track and Field, Swimming and other sports.
Some Ideas
Countries even smaller than Jamaica are able to give creditable performances at the World level, so all football leaders have to step up in creative programming by doing the following:
1. All leaders, managers and coaches read the latest seminal works in the areas of their professional responsibilities with the intent of improving knowledge and capacity to develop, lead and sustain high performance clubs.
2. Shake the bag and shift out the talent at every level… schools and private youth academies are doing some of this.
3. FAs sell Semi and Professional Franchises according to population, infrastructure, income and support of the game. In the case of Jamaica there are 14 Parishes – but allow the NPL and others to continue Club football as is but implement Club Leadership Training.
4. Arrange a Professional Super Season for Champions to review the National talent pool, allowing betting similar to the English Football Pools.
5. In the case of Jamaica, the Lottery Commission can structure and stabilize the entire process while helping to carry out their own core function
6. For Super Professional teams Jamaica has 3 Regional Franchises – Cornwall, Middlesex, Surrey, plus the NPL Champions, the NPL season’s All Stars, the All College and the current National Team.
7. Jamaicans abroad, wishing to represent Jamaica must play at least three games in this league to be eligible. Only three other players can be allowed a waver at the coaching staff discretion.
The Country’s National Coaching staff should not be predicting the same gaps every season without attempting to find local players and building their high performance capacity. Once the players are found, then we take them for tours over a 6 month period to play highly competitive teams to build their critical “pre-formance” experience in a more competitive learning environment prior to national duties.
This process will be difficult but let the discussion begin here. This movement can only gain traction by the willing participation of the leadership of football or the insistence of the family members who read.
