THE Jamaica Football Federation will host Group E of the Final Stage of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Under-17 qualification round to be held November 27 to December 4 this year.

The participating countries will be Guyana, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and hosts Jamaica.

In the absence of having a host country, the CFU asked Jamaica to host as the alternate format of home and away would prove far more costly for all competing countries, including Jamaica.

The final agreement between the CFU and JFF was arrived at on Tuesday of this week.

The hosting of the tournament, in the view of the JFF, will further strengthen the renewed interest in women’s football, which was ignited with the recently-staged FIFA Women’s Development Seminar in September, and the just-concluded Sherwin Williams Women’s League. Since the staging of the FIFA Seminar, the JFF has discussed with and submitted to FIFA a detailed plan for the development of the sport which has an emphasis on grassroots involvement of girls as well as developing the sport at the Under-15 age level.

The Qualifiers will begin on November 29 with a double-header involving Guyana vs Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica vs Bahamas.

The top three teams at the end of the tournament will advance to the eight-team CONCACAF phase of the Qualifiers to be held next year.

The JFF has convened a Local Organising Committee, which had its first meeting yesterday.

The JFF is appealing to corporate Jamaica to assist in making this opportunity a success and calls for volunteer support.

The country will be kept abreast of the tournament details.