REGGAE Boy Luton Shelton has urged all national football players — male and female — to take full advantage of the JFF technical centre when it becomes operational.

Shelton, 25, said the proposed centre which had ground-breaking at the UWI Bowl yesterday, will also offer overall technical and skill development in an environment conducive for the game.

“They (players) will learn more as they will want to play more because now they will have good pitches to play on,” he said.

The former Harbour View striker, who is now contracted to Sweden’s Valerenga, said the facility when completed will serve as a sort of breeding ground for players and a possible feeder for the overseas professional markets.

“It is good to know that we will be getting this academy so we can train properly, so when we go overseas it will much easier for us… they (players) should go out there and make good use of it (centre) as there is a lot of money in football these days,” said Shelton, one of three Jamaica internationals who attended the ceremony at the UWI in Mona. The others were Adrian Reid, who plays his club football in Norway, and Harbour View’s Lovel Palmer.

Shelton, who is capped 49 times and has scored 27 goals since being promoted to a senior Reggae Boy in 2004, said “a football academy” was long overdue after two previous attempts fell through to site such a facility in Portmore, St Catherine, and Malvern in St Elizabeth.

“I am very pleased because we needed this for a very long time, and all the young players who will benefit should see this as a privilege,” he ended.

Shelton is in coach Theodore ‘Tappa’ Whitmore’s squad for Sunday’s friendly international at the National Stadium against CONCACAF rivals Canada.