IN a bid to improve its finances and garner more sponsorship for its organisation, the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) has appointed Mark McDonald as head of its financial committee.

The move is part of KSAFA’s restructuring process which has been brought on by newly appointed president of the organisation, Mark Bennett. McDonald is a former president of Seaview Gardens Football Club and senior finance director at J Wray & Nephew.

Former national women’s coach, Andrew Price has been appointed chairman of the technical committee while former General Secretary Dwayne Dillon has returned to the organisation as chairman of the development committee.

Bennett told the Jamaica Observer that he is hoping these changes will bear fruit because KSAFA is one of the leading confederations in Jamaica.

“We have looked at our standing committee and we saw where the work of the association was hindered by practically the non-functioning of many of the committees, and to [that] end we decided to strengthen those committees,” said Bennett.

“We have invited Mark McDonald — and he is senior director of Wray & Nephew — to head our finance committee, and he will also be charged with the responsibility of doing a strategic review of the organisation and to make plans for us in the medium and long term.

“We want to look at how we can build on our youth programmes, because you know that we have one of the strongest youth programmes in the country, and we want to make that better,” Bennett stated. “We want to look at fan engagements so that the clubs can better survive, coaching education of the clubs, and so those are some of things that we will be looking at.”

Bennett was elected unopposed as president of the KSAFA at a special annual general meeting on November 12. He replaced Wayne Shaw who resigned from the post on November 1 after serving in the position since 2017.

He shared that both Dillon and Price are very experienced sports administrators, therefore he is confident that they both will help to move the association forward in a very positive way.

“Dwayne Dillon will be returning as our development committee chairman because we want to look at how we can build support with the association with non-governmental agencies, both locally and internationally,” Bennett said.

“Our technical committee will be headed by Andrew Price — and he needs no introduction — and so this is all a part of plans for KSAFA moving forward. I am confident that these changes will certainly help and improve KSAFA as we move forward into the future,” he said.