MONTEGO BAY, St James — As part of plans to improve several playing fields in and around the city of Montego Bay, the newly elected executive of the St James Football Association will be seeking to get full control of the UDC field on Howard Cooke Boulevard, the most used venue in the parish.

“We want full control of the UDC field. We know we have full access now, but we need something more, something official, we need to take control of it. It is much better than it looks, as it is used almost seven days a week; it takes a beating and there is not much rehabilitation or upkeep being done on it,” Gregory Daley, the FA president explained.

The FA boss said his association is hesitant to put any resource into the field without having the full control it desires.

“We want to do some work on it, but it is hard to invest in a field that you don’t have full control over,” he stressed.

Presently, games in the various leagues run by the FA are played mostly at the UDC field and Jarrett Park, while other games are played at West Green and Albion.

The newly re-elected president of the association told the Jamaica Observer West that upgrading the infrastructure is one of the main priorities of the new administration.

“One of the main sore points that we have in the parish is infrastructure,” Daley said last week Monday after he was returned unopposed for a third term, adding that “especially when it comes to fields, it is a main sore point right now.”

He pointed out that while “land space is very limited, we are still looking for space to set up quality fields where the game can be played properly”.

He added, however, that the association has identified a number of existing fields they are hoping to be able to rehabilitate but discussions will have to be held with various stakeholders before work can commence.

“We have some work to do, as we don’t want to go into a community and fix the field then we can’t have access mainly because of the monster of crime and violence. we are trying to meet with community leaders and political representatives to see what we can do,” he explained.

The field at Albion, he said, and another in Norwood, were two they have identified for rehabilitation, adding that the latter “is a really good field that has been neglected for a while and it is in fairly close proximity to everyone…”

Daley noted that the FA would not want to get too much involved with the community fields outside of the city limits.

“We don’t want to get too involved in those fields as it is too far for most teams to travel to play games there, so we will leave those alone for now and try to deal with those closer in the town,” he said.