THIS weekend the Jamaican football season is set to get underway with the start of the schoolboys’ football competition and the Red Stripe Premier League, both within a 24-hour period.

On Saturday the schoolboys’ football will kick off with a triple header at the Montego Bay Sports Complex, while another 45 games — 29 in the daCosta Cup and 16 in the Manning Cup — will be played.

A day later the island’s top club competition will get underway with the usual six games scheduled.

The usual anticipation that surrounds the schoolboy football competition is rising and the build-up has seen several pre-season competitions, some high-profile, some not so much. But come Saturday and until a champion is crowned in both competitions in late November, the fans are expected to turn out in their usual numbers to support

their teams.

Plans for the Red Stripe Premier League on the other hand is not so well known; as late as Tuesday night when this column was being written, it was not known whether defending champions Montego Bay United would be opening their season on Sunday or Monday night on

live television.

At least the Premier League Club Association (PLCA) organisers of the competition had listened to reason and scheduled western clubs MBU and promoted Reno to meet in the opening round.

The anticipation surrounding the schoolboys’ season is well founded and it could be one of the most exciting ever, even for one reason — teams from the daCosta Cup and Manning Cup competitions will face each other during the regular season.

Sponsors LIME will be putting up $1 million for the winners of this competition that will be played between the top eight schools from each competition. Added to this, there will be the resumption of the season’s ending game between the all-daCosta and all-Manning teams, so the top players from both competitions will be facing each other several times.

If there is one negative, however, it will be the reduction of the number of teams participating in the Ben Francis Knockout competition.

This year just four schools, the semi-finalists in the daCosta Cup competition will contest the knockout, as the organisers argue that with the increase in games to be played, including one more round in the daCosta Cup, they would not have enough time for more teams to contest the knockout.

Interestingly, when the number of teams in the knockout was increased, it was to improve what had become a somewhat predictive end of the rural area schoolboys’ football season.

With the same four teams facing each other for both titles, it was thought then that expanding the pool would give more teams a chance to win a title, as well as keep more schools and their fans involved in the season longer.