We are disheartened yet intrigued by news that parts of Jamaica’s women’s football programme have been scrapped.

Our fear is that the suspension of the senior and Olympic women’s teams could have far-reaching social implications. For we suspect that when the cash-strapped Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) decided to make the chop, they did not properly calculate how it would impact the young women who play.

A former captain of the Reggae Girlz, Mrs Alicia Wilson-Lopez, in reacting to the cut, said that her current station in life was due in the main to Jamaica’s football.

Like her, we are made to understand that numerous other young Jamaican women got their break in life by gaining scholarships to overseas educational institutions through the sport.

While it is claimed that the JFF’s decision to trim may have been a hasty one, we opt to give them the benefit of the doubt that all reasonable possibilities were explored before arriving at the decision. After all, everything takes money and the JFF has little of it. That, we believe, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But there is also suggestion that women’s football in Jamaica is its own worst enemy. For example, we know that the current coach Mr Vin Blaine and the chairwoman of the JFF Women’s Committee, Mrs Elaine Walker-Brown, did not see eye to eye on many related issues. The relationship soured and culminated in Mr Blaine walking away from the programme in early 2007.

With Mr Blaine’s departure, the programme plummeted under successors Jamaican Mr Charles Edwards and later Brazilian Mr Luciano Gamma.

As a result, the Girlz were again being swamped by the likes of the USA, Canada, Mexico, and even Costa Rica — an indication of a reversal in the state of the programme.

Prior, Mr Blaine had moulded a bunch of skilful Girlz into a competitive unit, losing only marginally to the aforementioned powerhouses. And as further testament to their growth, the Girlz made the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2005, where they barely missed out on World Cup qualification.

Hence, the divisiveness and coaching changes pretty much crippled any attempt of effective forward planning and collective posturing for the good of the cause.

At this juncture, there are those who think that suspending the senior women’s programme was bad judgement. For it is believed that Jamaica has its best-ever pool of players at its disposal.

That the Girlz could have seriously mounted a challenge for a place in next year’s FIFA World Cup where CONCACAF has three spots, is not so far-fetched an idea to them.

But we need some convincing, because while we have dominated the Caribbean region, our women’s teams at all levels have failed time and again when they come up against the CONCACAF ‘big wigs’.

And less than two weeks ago, that point was underlined when our Under-17 outfit was knocked out at the preliminary stage of the CONCACAF qualifying tournament in Costa Rica, repeating the fate of the Under-20s two months earlier.

So in the final analysis, we get the feeling there’s is no clear policy direction on women’s football in Jamaica. In fact, we suspect the JFF would be mighty happy just to get rid of it once and for all.

A great pity.