THE 2015 edition of the schoolboy football competitions has begun with the usual fanfare for fans across the country. With the first round of games ending, I think it is a good time to discuss some of the issues surrounding football development in Jamaica. For me, the two main issues are:

1) player-development methods employed during the early years of football playing, and

2) our approach to development during the teenage years.

Change at the grassroots level

It would be disingenuous to say that we are maximising the potential of the abundance of raw footballing talent in Jamaica. We already operate at a handicap to other countries because of the lack of acceptable playing fields and facilities that hinder the technical advancement of our players. This is a well-known and accepted truth for even the casual sport observer and needs to be corrected urgently. However, I believe that there should be even greater importance placed on the player development structure put in place in the country.

In arguments about the lack of locally based players in the national team, despite the lack of competitiveness displayed by the majority of teams in schoolboy football and the general perception of Jamaican football underachieving, the public, media, coaches and administrators fail to devote significant effort to discussing and solving the root issue.

This root problem is that players born and raised in Jamaica are not provided with football environments when they are young that adequately develop the various tools needed by high-level football players.

I firmly believe that maximising the potential of our players would make us regular participants in the biggest international tournaments and would earn a larger number of our players successful careers in the more revered international leagues. It would simultaneously raise the level of local football at all stages, and open up more revenue opportunities for the sport. In my opinion, we need to look seriously into the approaches at the grassroots, early development stages of the sport, and devise realistic, pertinent and actionable guidelines and policies for all coaches, clubs, PE teachers, and school coaches at these levels to adhere to as they train youngsters. This would greatly influence our ability to maximise our talent resources.

Examples from abroad

There are a number of nations that have conducted research and implemented new development structures, including Belgium and Panama, who in the recent past have visibly been reaping the benefits of these changes. As an example of what I am talking about, in Germany, the football association (DFB) has identified a four-level youth development structure, with ages 3-10 focused on basic training with the emphasis on learning the game’s fundamentals by playing football, experiencing football and developing general movement skills. The guidelines for play at these age groups are 4v4, 5v5, and 7v7 play on size-restricted fields for recreational games and in local leagues.

At Ajax, the holy grail of football youth development, small-sided games are a daily part of football education in the early years, and players learn to play every position on the field. It is the same in Spain, where last week an exceptional goal by Barcelona’s U-12 team (competing in a league that is 7v7) spread like wildfire on social media.

US Soccer recently put in place a similar scheme to Germany’s, which will become mandatory for all states in 2017, limiting the size of pitches and number of players (up to 9v9) until the U-13 age group, and comes following analysis of a 4v4 pilot study done at Manchester United in 2013. This change is in addition to the revamping of their club structure at the end of the last decade, which allows the highest potential players to take part in more streamlined footballing environments year-round, as opposed to the previous convoluted structure which had players in as many as three different environments under different coaches with different requirements — much like we do currently.

The goal of these adaptations is to enhance comfort levels with the ball (passing and dribbling), decision-making, positioning and spatial awareness of the players at an early stage by providing them with much more time on the ball than if they were playing 11v11 on a slightly smaller-than-regulation, but still much too big, pitch. Essentially the goal is increasing game understanding and technical ability.

In Brazil, futsal is the tool used to enhance these skills, with the importance of this game to the development of Ronaldinho, Neymar and others well documented. It should be noted that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) is taking the very positive steps to push futsal in Jamaica through the provision of coaching courses.

A few weeks ago an esteemed member of the coaching fraternity lamented the lack of consistency within the schoolboy ranks. In my opinion that this is a direct outcome of the guidance given to the players from a tender age. The fundamentals of the game have not been learnt by these youngsters at a level that allows them to play with the same confidence and efficiency on a day-to-day basis.

Football in the teenage years

Their understanding of game movements, tactical and technical nous should already be at a fairly high level going into U-19 football, with the talent development regimens implemented during the childhood and early teenage years (up to U-14/15) producing such an outcome. The role of the Manning and daCosta Cup coaches should be fine-tuning these skills and knowledge, while layering on the physical, nutritional and psychological elements of the game in order to produce well-rounded, elite footballers who think quickly, move efficiently, and can make an impact on the international stage.

Change of structure needed to develop elite players

With this in mind, it is my view that a different structure is needed during the teenage years, where schoolboy football should be a secondary concern to a well-planned and funded club structure, allowing four to five days of training and one match per week from September to May. This would work most efficiently in conjunction with the proposed franchise system and an overall more tightly regulated senior club system of 30-36 clubs, which I believe is another necessary adaptation.

Any honest assessment will show the schoolboy football framework does not work efficiently as an elite talent development platform, which is one of its primary functions in the current environment. It is the main feeder system for our senior leagues and national teams, but if the majority of players are only playing 6-10 games as their ‘season’ then the chances of them improving their level of play are slim to none. Again, talent resources are not being maximised.

Schoolboy football, like all school sports, was introduced as a means to develop well-rounded future citizens through instilling the many values such as discipline, respect for authority, teamwork, competing fairly, winning and losing with class, and overall ‘gentlemanly’ behaviour. It was devised as a supplement to education in the classroom which was, is, and should remain the major focus of schools. But what we have now, because of the evolution of society and sport, is a system that is trying to fulfil this goal of instilling these intangibles and also serving as a means to developing high-level football players for international play and even professional sports careers.

While the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive, it is clear that there is a lack of balance between the two as currently executed, which is exacerbated by a number of other factors. What sport administrators must realise is that their purposes for existence are not the same as those of other groups. Though they may have some commonalities in the work they do, the best methods to achieve their goals will not necessarily be the same.

A change to a two- or three-tiered schoolboy football system — if the resistance to its being watered down and placed in the background remains high — is a possible solution. However, such a system would have to be purpose-built with intricate collaboration between the JFF — which, as a national sporting organisation, is charged with talent development as one of their main purposes for existence — and Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association ISSA (which was formed to regulate school sport as a supplement to traditional learning in the classroom) to achieve both goals.

For example, the elite league (most likely involving the ‘pedigree’ schools) could run throughout the entire school year, with the other two leagues, for the less serious ‘ballas’, occupying the same calendar as the current seasons. But I fear the impact this will have on the already delicate balance between academics and athletics in some of our secondary institutions, and this is without even considering the potential havoc in terms of player movement, recruitment between schools and the criteria for assigning which and how many schools belong to each tier. This will most likely be much more trouble than it’s worth, hence my preference for a club system, which would overall be easier to regulate.

Want change? Take action!

If the stakeholders in football — fans, coaches, media, sponsors, clubs, JFF — are indeed serious about improving the level of football played in Jamaica and our fortunes in the sport on the international stage, changes must be made from the bottom up.

In order to avoid another 20-year drought between World Cup appearances — if we do manage to qualify for Russia 2018 — the wealth of ideas available from a range of sources regarding talent development in football should be analysed thoroughly and steps taken to implement a holistic, purpose-built framework for our unique environment at the earliest possible moment.

As with anything in Jamaica, the biggest hurdle will be changing our mindset and understanding that hard, unpopular choices will have to be made if we are serious about progression. An increase in the level of football talent we produce won’t just magically come about if we continue to do things the same way we have always done them. Action over words.

Machel Turner is managing director of Prime Time Sports Management. Send comments to the Observer or ptsmcaribbean@gmail.com.