Let’s face it, there’s either a scarcity of good football coaches in the country, or the clubs contesting the top league are afraid of stepping out of their comfort zones and engaging the untried.

For, time and again we have seen that the individuals employed by the top local outfits are the same old veterans of the Premier League circuit, with very few new ones getting the opportunity to break into this coveted level of the game.

The result is a depressing recycling of those so-called talented coaches whose credentials are nevertheless to be interrogated due to their inability to hold onto their jobs for any notable period, despite possibly enjoying a moderate degree of success with the various outsits.

The great irony is that this lamentable scenario is decorating our landscape at a time when the JFF is making a concerted effort to widen the talent pool with a proliferation of certified coaching courses.

A further contradiction is that, as a country, we have more qualified football coaches now than at any other time in our history, regardless of the level under review. For, one can recall those primitive days when all it took to prepare a team — at any level — was a combination of experience as a player, a loud mouth, being known by the team management and a series of other ‘qualifications’ bereft of logical or theoretical underpinnings.

Indeed, there is merit in the insistence by the local football authority that an individual must have attained a certain level of certification before he is permitted to coach at any level in Jamaica.

The hard, cold fact is that the future of our young football talents depends upon the astute guidance of individuals who are au fait with the various facets of the game, of which nutrition, anatomy and physiology, sport psychology and the ability to motivate should be accorded equal weight.

And while the aptitude to elicit the optimum from players is an important skill that hinges more on nature rather than nurture, it can nevertheless be acquired through serious study and consistent practise.

For, no doubt, this inadequacy lies at the heart of the disillusionment of the local clubs who themselves should be blamed for not exercising the requisite patience by expecting phenomenal results, even without the presence of any vision or long-term goal.

Unless one is a Real Madrid, a Chelsea or a Manchester City with the financial clout to induce an instantaneous quick-fix, a club should not expect to be propelled into the echelons of success without first having a decent youth development programme. After all, it is at this stage that the rudimentary skills and attitudes are taught, which fosters a smooth transition into the senior level, thus fostering continuity.

But perhaps there is something fundamentally flawed with the local perception of what constitutes a good coach anyway. In an environment in which results and survival in a competition are understandably the emphasis, the clubs believe they have very little choice but to hit the ground running by employing a ‘tried and proven’ coach, or risk floundering in a lower league bereft of serious sponsorship and financial backing, with obscurity a distinct possibility.

However, while this may be the jarring reality on the one hand, an increasing number of coaches are not awaiting the verdict of their respective clubs, but rather, are throwing in the towel at the first sign of trouble — usually manifested in a series of unfavourable results, like a few defeats — in anticipation of the wrath of their employers.

But isn’t this spinelessness disguised as personal pride, since walking away from one’s responsibilities does nothing to bolster the self-esteem, or one’s curriculum vitae?

Further, it has never been proved that having walked away, these individuals engage in meaningful introspection to improve their skills or to avert a recurrence of these failures when they return — as history proves they will.

Indeed, we can rest assured that another club will come a-calling for those who have quit their coaching posts. For, as the much-travelled veteran Geoffrey Maxwell once declared, he doesn’t go the clubs; they come to him.

The questions, therefore, are: Shouldn’t our local football clubs be on the hunt for new coaches to bring a fresh and inspiring approach and philosophy to aspiring youngsters?