THE Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) top brass is hoping for a positive showing from the Reggae Boyz at the Copa America tournament which gets going in the United States on Thursday, as they look to build on the brand’s popularity and attract more international partners for the national football programme.

The Copa America tournament, South America’s premier competition for national teams including global heavyweights Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, has been extended this year to also include six teams from the Concacaf region, including Jamaica.

Almost 10 million households watched the final of the 2016 Copa America Centenario, which was the last time the tournament was held in the United States and involved teams from Concacaf — and JFF President Michael Ricketts believes the platform presents an opportunity to encourage greater support for the national teams.

“We want to use this as part of our marketing tool because when you are competitive globally, then overseas entitites will want to partner with you so it could make our marketing efforts on the global stage a little easier, and that is what we really want,” Ricketts told the Jamaica Observer.

“I’ve always thought that if you can get overseas sponsors when the US dollar is at $155 to [US]$1, then it makes a lot of difference. When we got adidas on board it wasn’t by accident because we were intent on getting overseas partners — and we are intent on attracting global partners,” he added.

The Jamaicans will get their 2024 Copa America campaign underway on Saturday at 8:00 pm against Mexico, before completing their group assignments against Ecuador next Wednesday (5:00 pm) and Venezuela on June 30 (7:00 pm).

Jamaica also participated in the 2016 Copa America Centenario as a guest team, after winning the Caribbean Cup in 2014; however, they lost all three games in the group stage to Venezuela, Mexico and Uruguay. The Reggae Boyz also featured at the 2015 Copa America but again lost all three games, this time to Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.

JFF General Secretary Dennis Chung is anticipating better results this time around, in hopes that this will draw more positive attention and support to the programme.

“I’m very excited about Jamaica’s participation. Jamaica has always held the flag high for the Caribbean and we are happy to be representing,” said Chung.

“The Jamaica brand is huge so it is very important that we do well. Last year we had the issue of negative publicity coming out of the election that placed a damper on things but, to show the strength of the brand, right after that a lot of things happened. We have a lot of positive news,” he added.

“From a financial point of view we made a $43-million surplus last year. We have a lot more sponsors coming on: We have adidas on board — and people don’t recognise that the adidas sponsorship is actually the largest sports sponsorship in the Caribbean — so we are very excited about it.

“So there is a lot of demand out there and a lot of loyalty to Brand Jamaica, and we are looking to build on it more and more so this tournament is a huge opportunity,” Chung shared.

Meanwhile, Ricketts is encouraging other local companies to support the programme.

“We do have some local companies that have supported us and we just hope that a number of others will come on board. We don’t just want to play football but we must use football as a tool that will influence the social well-being of every little boy and girl,” Ricketts stated.

The Jamaican delegation arrived in Houston, Texas, on Sunday, ahead of Saturday’s opening match.