In an effort to ramp up support for its 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) has teamed up with marketing company 876stream to inform future sponsors and supporters about its push for the tournament.

JFF President Michael Ricketts made the announcement during a press conference at the JFF’s headquarters in New Kingston on Thursday.

He described this agreement with 876stream as a strategic move as they gear up for a busy campaign.

“I think this is a step in the right direction because we want to replicate what happened in 1997, so we thought about it long and hard and we took the decision that marketing is very key to the success of this programme,” Ricketts said. “We engaged 876stream with hope that we will be able to get the word out and have the programme branded, and the end result, hopefully, will be our presence at the 2026 World Cup.”

Ricketts says 876stream, which has been around for the past four years, has a significant social media following, and that the JFF will be looking to tap into that market as well.

“We looked into all of that because we wanted to partner with an entity that can impact the world and an entity that has a following on social media,” he said. “We looked at a number of other possibilities, and we thought that this is the way to go, and we are just hopeful that we will get some positive results.”

Conrod Mathison, chairman of 876stream, says they are looking forward to establishing a successful partnership with the JFF and aiming to market the country’s football programmes on its platform not only locally but also overseas.

“After working with the Jamaica Premier League over the last two years, where we helped them to gain sponsorship and saw a lot of excitement with filled stadiums, we realised that maybe if we can leverage the same skills and capabilities for the national team, so we just reached out to them and see if we can leverage, and so we ended up here in a good partnership,” Mathison said. “This is a major thing for us because what we will be doing is working through sponsorship for them, working through broadcast, working through marketing campaigns both locally and overseas, so it is a massive endeavour.

“We have partners locally and some partners globally, so we want to use that network to kind of bring this forward and help the national programme.”

The Reggae Boyz begin their qualifying campaign against the Dominican Republic on June 6 at the National Stadium.