SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The $10-million fee announced by the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) to send the Under-17 team to the Traffic Football Academy here for a three-week training stint is worth every cent, according to team officials who have witnessed the operations of the academy.

Head of Delegation Everton Tomlinson is in awe of the facility and thinks it is money well spent.

“I think it is well worth it. I have no doubt about that and I would be in agreement for it to go longer. We’re not wasting time here. We have nothing to lose and everything here to gain,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“I think it is an excellent facility for the development of young footballers and it is a great environment for effective learning to take place,” noted Tomlinson.

“The equipment, the food, the whole hospitality about it is conducive to the development of the mind towards the sport,” he said.

“I don’t know who in Jamaica wouldn’t love to have something like this, it is marvellous,” said Tomlinson.

Team manager Roy Simpson said in all his years in football, he has never seen anything like it.

“I think I’m in football long and I’ve never been to such a facility and it shows why certain countries are better than some,” revealed Simpson.

“It also shows you the kind of commitment the federation has to get this team qualified, because this is a first-world facility and I hope this is what we will assimilate in Jamaica,” added Simpson.

Head coach Wendell Downswell also weighed in.

“It is amazing, the facilities when compared to back home, it has just about everything…the facilities to train on, the medical staff and the meals so far. It’s an ideal setting for a footballer. It’s a dream for any young footballer to be in an environment like this,” said Downswell.

“It just lends itself to the development of football itself. The ambiance, everything is commendable and we must commend the JFF, despite the financial constraint that they are faced with, to have the youngsters in this type of environment.

“We must commend Coca Cola for their effort, and we are appealing to other sponsors to come on board,” he said.

Academia Traffic de Futebol is located at Porto Feliz (Happy Port), a rural setting two hour’s from the city in São Paulo and is the home of third division club Desportivo Brasil.

Traffic Academy is both a football club and a company which prepares rising football stars for Brazil and abroad.

The Academy is part of Traffic Sports, a leading sports marketing business for over 25 years, with offices in Brazil; the United States, with Miami FC; the Netherlands and Portugal.

As well as owning Desportivo and the Miami FC team, Traffic Sports holds TV/sponsorship rights to the main football club tournaments and national competitions in Latin America. It also leads a group of investors in economic rights over football players from several Brazilian teams.

In recent years, the group has made strategic communications investments in the São Paulo area. These include TV TEM, a network of four television stations serving 318 metropolitan areas, and the newspaper BOM DIA, a daily with five regional editions.

The Traffic Football Academy site, covering an area of 156,000 metres square, has seven fields, facilities for 144 athletes and a complete infrastructure for developing professional football players.

Leading-edge technology is used throughout the location, including advanced playing surfaces and automated irrigation systems.

Its 4,000m-two-floor main building houses a modern workout and physical recovery centre, together with a heated swimming pool and cryotherapy unit.

To ensure its administration and services match standards of excellence achieved on the field, the academy has chosen high performance connectivity solutions for its network infrastructure.

The new infrastructure at the facility supports more than 110 work stations. Data and voice outlets are distributed throughout rooms and apartments, administrative offices, the cafeteria, the library, doctors’ offices and the gym. A wireless network serves all spaces.