Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) President Michael Ricketts has hailed the country’s Under-14 Tier 1 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Challenge Boys Series title victory as a massive achievement for Jamaica’s football development.

The junior Reggae Boyz, who finished the tournament unbeaten, thrashed French Guiana 7-1 to win the title at the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday.

The Andrew Peart-coached team scored 25 goals while conceding just two in six games.

“We are indeed in a position to big up our coach and his staff, and every member of that technical staff, who helped us win this CFU Under-15 Challenge trophy,” beamed Ricketts.

“This is something that puts us in a situation where, with the Under-17 World Cup now being held every year, we will need to put a contingency plan in place to ensure that all of our teams, from Under-14 to Under-17 are in training so that we can make that transition.”

Ricketts highlighted that FIFA, the world governing body for football, played a significant role in assisting the national programme through the Talent Development Scheme (TDS), which provided funding for the Under-14 team.

“We were assisted tremendously by a programme funded by FIFA, the TDS programme. Some months ago, we applied for support under the TDS programme, and we were fortunate.

“We were one of 25 countries that FIFA heeded the call and gave tremendous support as we put together an Under-14 training squad, which spent a lot of time at the Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence working with Coach Peart and his staff. And the rest is history now,” he said.

Ricketts noted that much more support will be needed from everyone to keep these youngsters in training so they can progress to the Under-17 team and beyond, especially now that the FIFA Under-17 World Cup tournament will be held annually.

“What we really need is for the private sector, Government, and parent organisations to come on board because we want to qualify for the Under-17 FIFA World Cup next year and establish a sequence of qualifications. But we must have an organised plan in place to ensure that the Under-14s make the transition, as well as the Under-15s and Under-17s, so that we can participate in this global tournament every year,” heemphasised.

Peart acknowledged that, despite Jamaica’s dominance in the tournament, the competing teams were very talented, with many quality players in their line-ups.

“The quality of opposition we played against was really at a good level for Under-15s. When you look at Trinidad and Tobago or Puerto Rico, with an influx of diaspora players from the United States, and Aruba, who had players coming down from the Netherlands, the quality was really good,” Peart reasoned.