Former national women’s football team Head Coach Charles Edwards says it is crucial to use the accomplishment of the Reggae Girlz at the FIFA Women’s World Cup to create opportunities for local players.

Jamaica’s campaign at the tournament in Australia ended at the round-of-16 phase on Tuesday with a 0-1 defeat to Colombia.

While Edwards describes himself as exceedingly proud of the team for what it has achieved, he says this should be seen as an opportunity to appeal to corporate bodies to fund local women’s football so that girls playing in Jamaica with the ambition of becoming professionals can realise that dream.

“We need to now give the local players the opportunity to knock on the door,” Edwards told the Jamaica Observer. “Even if they fail, let them knock on the door and realise what it takes. If they fail, they know what they need to go back and do to get into the squad. This momentum is something the JFF [Jamaica Football Federation] needs to utilise significantly. There’s no big funding coming into the federation for it to really run a league, so this can appeal to corporate Jamaica in the sense of getting better sponsorship — setting the league up so that we can get better quality going forward and longer time for the girls to be playing.”

Edwards, who is also known for his time coaching Barbican Women’s Football Club to nine consecutive national league titles, also calls for the best players from the local clubs to be placed in national camps, as is the case on the men’s side of the game where talent from the Jamaica Premier League is picked for exclusive training where their readiness for national selection is assessed.

“Let’s say you find 20 or 30 girls here who are good quality,” he said, “you should have a coach or two working with them because the level of fitness some of these local girls are carrying, there’s absolutely no way they’re going to get into the programme like that.

“When the girls from a pro background overseas come in and are training, they’re at a higher level of fitness, professionalism, IQ of the game, and so forth. We need something set up to take the local-based players to that level.”

Edwards says it is critical to create these opportunities because without them, local players may become demotivated if they believe that there is no clear path to advancement from where they now play.

“We don’t want to sit down and think that every day we’re going to find overseas-based players for Jamaica,” he said.

“These are overseas-based players but they are Jamaican by heritage, so it’s no disrespect to them. They are our players and our people. We love them and we want them to continue playing for us, but we need the local-based players to get an opportunity as well. If we don’t, we’re going to struggle to find players to play in our league in the future.”

Edwards thought the performance against Colombia was better than in games in the group stage of the World Cup, but he thought they could have shown more in front of goal.

“The reality is that we got two or three glorious opportunities which we muffed, especially the Trudi Carter miss,” he said.

“It was a simple chance and I think it was easier to score it than to miss it. She took the hardest route of missing but it’s just one of those things. Still, credit must be given to the team.

“I want to say a big congrats to them. We’re very proud of them and love them just the same and we want them not to come home disappointed but feeling happy that they have accomplished a lot and they’re a historic team in the region.

“We as Jamaicans have to rally behind them and let them know how proud we are of them. They are still my champions.”