Before we unleash our anger and seek to quench our thirst for success with blames, counter blames and counter-counter blames, let us resolve to fix what is an all-too- obvious failed, failing and misaligned football infrastructure.

Cost it what it will, we must endeavour to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to right our wrongs.

The next World Cup campaign is a full four years away, the 2022 World Cup, our next possibility is six years away. Digicel’s commitment is set to run until 2020, Romai’s through to 2019, other stellar sponsors such as Courts, WATA, Stewarts Auto, et al, may very well remain with the JFF, even if at reduced levels of sponsorship.

That being as it is, the timing couldn’t be better for all of us in football to coalesce our intelligence, passions, efforts and various resources to a football vision that can reap endless benefits.

I will concede that results cannot be guaranteed in sports, but I am emboldened by the success stories of Germany, Belgium, Spain, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras, who have all committed themselves to a national football vision.

By and large, all of these countries have used failure at one point or another to galvanise, renew and re-establish themselves with varying degrees of success.

Like these countries, we too must face the music, bite the bullet and collectively decide on a new paradigm that is designed to create sustainable successes at all levels.

To begin with, we need a vision for football development. Such a vision will pivotally have a prescribed idea/philosophy of play. This idea must, by persuasion and collective agreement, be the basis for all football development from grass roots through to our elite performers.

We can no longer afford the unsuccessful yet expensive, barely beneficial approach of scouring the globe for the ‘what left’ of other nations for Diaspora Jamaicans to bring us success.

Let me be very clear on this, I am not anti-Diaspora Jamaicans, representing us, I am anti us not developing our homeg-rown talents to compete on even keel for places in our national teams.

As our national anthem states “give us vision lest we perish”, our football is without vision and this is an opportunity for us to come together and create that vision, a vision that clearly articulates and prescribes the development pathway all the way through our football landscape.

It must, by necessity, include aspects such as: the competition structure, the national youth teams, coaching education school, elite sports schools/academics, talent identification and promotion, and grass roots football.

COMPETITION STRUCTURE

The competition structure is arguably the most important infrastructure in the development of the game. Effective competition structures account for numerous factors, most importantly among which are, economics and demography.

For too long we have allowed insular politics and myopia to dictate and determine this discussion. Fact is, Jamaica has neither the demography nor economy to meaningfully and sustainably maintain the existing structure that includes approximately 600 teams/clubs. Almost all our Central American counterparts and numerous other top flight football nations have competition structures ranging from a low of 23 to a high of 80 teams.

Comparatively speaking, using GNI 20-36 clubs seems most suitable for us, this would be classified as our elite football league. Other clubs would then play amateur football. Elite clubs must operate as registered businesses and be treated as such in every regard. They must operate academies and cater to the development of players at a minimum between age 13 and 19, therefore meaning that these clubs would have youth teams playing competitively for 8-10 months per year.

A natural dividend of this long-term development approach will be an established pathway for selection to national teams (the mystery must exist no more). National youth teams will no longer need the extensive preparation periods that now obtain, with the national coaching staff having to spend enormous amounts of time teaching skills and concepts that should be taught within a proper club/academy.

With all clubs and teams developing players with the same idea/philosophy, the role of national coaches will change significantly as will those of club/academy coaches. Much to the expected chagrin of many, schoolboy football cannot continue to be the place of development for our elite youth players. As such, elite youth football should not be tied to schools, but rather to clubs.

Based on evidence, the Under-17 Men’s World Cup is the easiest World Cup for us to qualify for, we have already done it twice. Countries like Ghana, Nigeria and a host of other African countries realised that by consistently qualifying for this World Cup they would eventually become serious competitors at the senior level.

Panama in the last six-eight years have adopted this approach, just maybe they will now qualify for their first Senior Men’s World Cup.

For all the above to realise meaningful successes of any sort, coaching education must be prioritised and always be a step ahead. The current coaching school will need to be redesigned and should seek alliances with coaching schools/education programmes in other football associations.

ELITE CLUBS

A minimum twice the number of elite clubs must be trained internationally within the first year and thereafter, 10-20 annually. These coaches should be trained in different jurisdictions to ensure we are able to adopt the most suitable of the best to our own situations.

Annual technical review of all elite-level football must guide planning and preparation for the next season. These review conferences should be mandatory and elite coaches must renew their licences by prescribed means during the conference.

G C Foster College, our flag bearer of sports education, must become an integral partner in this process; at least one highly qualified lecturer in football technique and tactics needs to be enrolled on the staff there.

As we will never seek to play Russian roulette with the lives of our young athletes, a partnership with the Ministry of Education is absolutely necessary. There will be need for the introduction of elite sports schools. This is more a construct than an actual school, even though where possible that will be ideal.

The idea is simply that our elite student athletes (all sports) should be provided with an opportunity to carry a lighter, more relevant academic load whilst being allowed more preparation time for their respective sports. Allowances will also need to be made to protect the athletes when they are away from school as part of their athletic development or competition. Specialised homework/study programmess and other academic support initiatives would be mandated for all student athletes in this programme. Ideally, this initiative will need at least one such designated school per parish.

Fundamental to all of this restructuring is the commercialisation of the football product. As players are the most important asset in such a business, then identification and development of talent is crucial to success and sustainability. Talent must be clearly defined, procedure for identifying and imputing talent potential must be designed, taught and practised.

The vision for player development will account for, among other things, biological age versus developmental age, physical characteristics, and age-appropriate training. No longer will we have player development occurring haphazardly and resultant to the roll of the dice. Rather, player development will now be deliberate, specific, methodic and guided by science and best practices.

Reality is that only a very small number of all players will make it to the very top, whether local or international. Thus it is imperative that to increase the potential quality at the top, we must create a very large base.

GRASS ROOTS FOOTBALL

Consequently, our thrust and efforts in grass roots football must be sustained and improved upon. The grass roots programmes must also be integrated into or tied to the elite football pyramid. This will ensure that critical ideas are planted when the football is all about just having fun and learning the game.

Fundamental to the success of the vision when created is the enrichment of our technical centre of excellence. This centre will be managed by the director of football who will have direct oversight responsibility for the implementation of all aspects of the vision.

The centre should not be one of excellence by name only but by output. It will be abuzz with activities daily, with elite players and coaches in constant training and development. Rehabilitation, study and research, reviews, physiotherapy, physical training and more should also be integral to the daily activities at the centre.

Importantly, the centre should cater to the public in ways that allow for income generation in areas such as jogging, restaurant, spa use, rental of playing and teaching areas and so on.

One of the most instrumental parties to the vision to be created and executed will be the Government. Government should explore policies to encourage the development of sports in general and football in particular, especially in the areas of infrastructure development and tax policies to encourage investment in the sector.

Installation of artificial scrimmage fields (40-50M x 60-70M), each at an estimated cost of under $20 million in communities within each constituency, should come in for serious consideration.

In addition to providing quality low-maintenance surfaces for development of the game, such a move would also, without doubt, contribute to our crime-reduction efforts. Parish council-controlled lighting should be considered for select communities. Another option is for Government to either give incentives for the development of full fields or do so systematically in each parish.

Another important role for Government is to sponsor the coaching education programme through scholarships for coaches to study overseas, and more importantly to, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, engage a top-class international lecturer or two for G C Foster College in the area of football tactics. This particular involvement, I would suggest, need not last beyond five years, after which we should have grown sufficiently to manage our own affairs.

These ideas were first developed in 2012 and continue to be modified and enriched consequent to continuing research and study of national football in various countries. I have since developed my own idea of how we should play (‘One Touch’) and I have my own coaching philosophy (‘Players First’) adopted from John Calipari of basketball fame and further enhanced. These are continuously being improved upon as I learn and grow.

I am not interested in having my ideas being the way to go. In fact, I am conscious that these ideas could become quite costly to my own career. Yet, I am comforted that my sole desire is to see us become proactive in our efforts to achieve successes in international football in a sustainable way.

Editor’s note: Andrew C Edwards (BA, Dip Ed) is the head coach of Jamaica’s Under-17 Men’s team.