President Michael Ricketts says the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) recognises that it has a role to play in ensuring Jamaican youth stay away from crime.

With measures taken by the Government to censor certain aspects of the media it believes influence youngsters into believing a criminal lifestyle is glamorous, discussions continue regarding other factors that actually cause crime and violence. There is also a debate on how to keep youngsters from turning to criminality.

Ricketts says that football is a vehicle for social change and that the JFF can and will do more to try to effect change among youngsters.

“We do not just want to be the football bosses, so to speak, but we must also have a social impact on our youngsters,” Ricketts told the Jamaica Observer. “I have had some discussions with the general secretary [Dennis Chung], and we intend to write to Fifa to ask if there is any kind of funding, any kind of support, where we get into the inner cities and try our best to socially impact the youngsters. We must, as a football organisation, try to positively impact our youngsters.”

Ricketts says this project will come into effect in January.

“We’ll be on a drive with talent identification,” he said. “We want to improve our grassroots programme and our whole development programme. We want to ensure that we entice and attract youngsters. We want to be absolutely clear what our path and what our programmes will be in the near future.”

Ricketts says such a venture can ultimately lead to social change, especially as it regards greater economic impact through remittances. This means local players earning contracts with overseas clubs would be able to not only earn attractive incomes but be able to financially support their relatives and communities back in Jamaica.

Ricketts also thinks past national players have a role to play. Former Reggae Boy Ricardo Fuller, now back at his former club Stoke City, in England, earning his coaching badges, told the Observer recently that he loves mentoring young players and is eager to work with the JFF in the future, in the interest of further serving his country.

“That is something I’m sure would have an impact on our youngsters,” he said. “We will be giving some serious thought to it in the new year. We have a brand-new sponsor [adidas] coming on board, probably the most decorated of all the sporting apparel companies. I’m sure they’ll be coming with new ideas and we’ll be having discussions with them to see how best we can facilitate a process of engaging young boys and young girls,” he said.