RECENTLY I have been working with a fellow alumnus to facilitate a couple of English youths coming to play in our premier league. These are 18- and 19 year-old kids who have not made the cut at big clubs like Chelsea.

Cognisant of the fact that their dream of playing professional football has diminished, they are seeking to follow a growing trend among “failed” academy players. That is, to ply their trade in a less developed country (by football standards) and hopefully work their way back into the big leagues.

This reminded me that whilst at Traffic Academy in Brazil I learnt that if a player couldn’t be sold at 17 years old he would generally be offloaded. Yet, we in Jamaica are making our most substantial investments in players in their 20s and 30s. Sure enough, a few have and will continue to make the breakthrough. Instead of a sparing few, I envision a significant many, however, being contracted by international clubs. Lest we forget the highest transfer fees paid for Jamaican players have been for Gardner, Austin and Fuller whilst they were “still quite young”.

For several years coach Jackie Walters has mooted the idea of a super league amongst the top schools in the Manning and DaCosta Cups. Coach Walters is a wily veteran of immense experience; one for whom I have great respect. Central to this moot is the fact that the high school season is too short and thus does not lend itself to the levels, consistency, quality and detailed preparation that will enable us to be more competitive internationally.

This argument is based on the knowledge that our high schools have for a very long time been the conveyor belt churning out most of the talent that goes on to represent this country, not only in football, but in all sports.

The sports landscape of the 21st Century is far too complex for us to be still dependent on our ill-equipped high school system to deliver world beaters in football.

Every coach I know and all the prominent administrators of football have two primary objectives in common. They all desire to elevate players from their camps to the national programmes and to export players to international clubs. Both objectives, I believe, can be achieved in substantially quantitative and qualitative ways on a sustained basis. This will, however, require a paradigm shift that will encapsulate the current best practices of football management, marketing, player development, financial planning and management, technical planning and development, and strategic planning.

It has been said on numerous occasions in varied media that it costs approximately $25 million to run a club in the 12-team Premier League for a season — collectively this amounts to $300 million per year. This is a pretty penny for which the return in most seasons is approximately $5 million given as prize monies.

Even if one club were to win all available prize monies, it would still not make for a sustainable business. The PLCA has an opportunity to participate in a paradigm shift that will make local football a worthy business.

The JFF as the principals of football in the country has been holding consultations among its stakeholders about restructuring the nation’s football, and quite rightly so. A primary business of the JFF is to develop a football programme that is internationally competitive and which will enable qualification to World Cup tournaments at all levels.

Led by the astute army man, Captain Horace Burrell, we have, as a nation, qualified for four World Cup tournaments, a remarkable achievement. In the context of the immense anomalies that exist within the structures of our football, this can easily be seen as overachievement. Unlike our CONCACAF counterparts, to say the least, Jamaica’s football development structures are quite archaic and lacking modern insights and investments.

Two recent JFF-sponsored sojourns have enlightened my thinking. In July 2012, I was a student on the first JFF/Brazil Coaching Course, staged in Brazil. There it was “forcefully” pointed out to us that, at least for the people at Traffic Academy, Sao Paulo FC and Santos FC, football is a business from which serious profits must always be made.

Professor Adolfo Canavesi said: “Traffic exist not for the love of football but because someone realised it’s good business.”

Earlier this month, I was a member of a three-man delegation to the annual US Soccer Development Academy’s Winter College Showcase. For five days we watched football from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm across 22 football fields all located on one complex in Sarasota, Florida. The quality on display, in my humble opinion, was largely average. Strikingly though, the players had an admirable “sticktoitiveness” that never waned regardless of the scoreline or which players were on the pitch. It was almost mechanical, from the warm-up to the game to the cool down. Every player knew exactly what his role was and within his own limitations executed the basics with completeness of purpose.

When I add to these two perspectives, the overwhelming admiration for the dexterity, guile and showmanship of the Jamaican player I must conclude we are not doing nearly enough to create real wealth from our little gold mine. On every single coaching course I have attended where foreigners presented and Jamaican kids have been used for demonstration purposes, the compliments received with regard to the quality of the kids have been nothing short of superfluous.

In March 2011 while I was in Brazil with the U-20 team, an instructor, who was brought in to teach our players “football movements”, remarked afterwards, “I am currently doing my thesis on this subject and we have concluded it takes approximately 18 months for the typical Brazilian kid to develop these movements — your kids all seem to do it all naturally.”

I thought to myself pity ‘you don’t know that our culture and daily lifestyles enable the development of these moves naturally’. Come January 12, 2013, at least 25 college coaches, including former US U-17 national team coach Gerson Echeverry, will converge on Munro College in search of Jamaican talents to bolster their college teams. In Sarasota the coaches made no qualms about their respect and regards for the Jamaican player. They have even coined interesting descriptions for our players; “spice, vanilla, surgeons, magician”, and so on.

To enable more Jamaican players to earn scholarships or international contracts and to ensure consistent qualification to at least the youth World Cups, I posit the following. This proposal will require partnerships between the JFF, Government, schools and the private sector. Key to this proposal is the development of players. International best practices take advantage of scientific knowledge and know-how, and we MUST endeavour to develop our players along these lines.

Human beings are creatures of habits. The modern football player and team are developed along this premise. Countries/clubs develop a philosophy that is unique to their particular environment and culture. Once developed, this philosophy gauges the development of players throughout the entire structure. Characteristically, the Jamaican player is fast, full of guile, strong, athletic and passionate. To take full advantage of these traits we need to develop a training regimen that will foster good habits that will eventually create the kind of consistent effort and quality that is required at the international level for sustained success.

This idea is based on the development of approximately 1,200 players divided into three age categories playing a minimum of 30 competitive games annually. Ideally speaking, this concept would be best developed in an academy structure. In the absence of such a structure, the use of parish teams would suffice. Each parish would develop three teams totalling 75 players; U-15 team 30 players, U-17 team 25 players and U-20 team 20 players. A total of 16 teams (Kingston and St Andrew have two each) at each age level would compete in a round-robin format in a season lasting 32 weeks from November to June. National select teams will participate in International Tournaments like the Dallas Cup or the Disney Cup. US Development Academy teams can be invited for pre-season training and/or off-season tours.

Like the US Soccer Development Academy teams and the teams of Traffic Academy, our players need to be developed in a consistent way. Training programmes need to be well thought out and planned. Each training session should be well planned in sync with programme objectives. Coaches must meet regularly to appraise themselves and the programme. Continued training and development should be the hallmark of every coach involved.

This will have numerous other benefits. Once properly developed and established, the general standard and quality of play in local football will follow. The players will very early recognise the value of quality preparation, consistency of performance and endurance through a long season. Consequently, more and more players will be exported to both the US college system and international clubs, thus creating positive effects for the human development and economic development of the country. The ultimate desire, World Cup Qualification, will also become more easily attainable.

As a sidebar, it is one year since my first article was published and I use this space to express sincere gratitude to the Jamaica Observer for allowing me space to share my views. To all those who have read my articles and offered feedback, positive or negative, you are all invaluable to my continued growth and development, thank you.

Editor’s note: Andrew Edwards holds a BA, Dip Ed and is a teacher and football coach at Munro College and also the assistant coach of the National Under-20 team.