Speculation about who the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) will appoint as its new general secretary has led to debate about whether the role should next be given to a woman.

Two persons who have weighed in on this are former president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica Peter Moses, who is also the president of Real Mona FC, and women’s football coach and pundit Kadeesh Fishley.

Both say that they are not that concerned about the gender of the next general secretary, as long as they have the necessary qualifications.

“If we just want to speak generally, I would never determine somebody’s position based on gender,” Moses told the Jamaica Observer. “I think when you interview people, men or women, it is based on how the person presents themselves, their experience, et cetera. The fact of the matter is, I think that those lines have generally been erased.”

The role, which is the second in command at the JFF, behind the president, became vacant last month when Dennis Chung departed the JFF to become the chief technical director of the Financial Investigations Division.

After speaking with a well-placed source, the Observer has learnt that the JFF has already made a shortlist of candidates to fill the position and one of these is understood to have been a woman with prior experience working at the federation.

Though this role has traditionally been held by men in various associations globally, one notable instance of a female general secretary is Fatma Samoura, who was FIFA’s from 2016 to 2024. Not only was Samoura the first woman to hold that position at FIFA, but being Senegalese, she was also the first non-European to do so.

“When you look at some of the game interviews in the sports news, sometimes there’s a woman who is the coach of a men’s team, not only women’s teams,” Moses said. “You see it in track and field as well — obviously not as the majority, or even close to that, but those lines are being erased.”

Some of the key functions of a general secretary in most football associations include but are not limited to directing the commercial objectives of the body, including consolidating and growing existing income streams (especially sponsorship) as well as identifying and exploiting new income streams; to manage and be accountable for the financial performance of the association, and to monitor and control costs in line with the objectives set by the FIFA Council; to support the president in ensuring that the association delivers on all of its statutory requirements and promotes the highest standard of corporate governance and transparency; to support committees and football bodies as appropriate to influence and shape policy for the development of football across the country and, where required, within the confederation and worldwide.

These functions suggest that a general secretary needs to be an individual with more than just a football background, but also experience in business management.

A study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) for 2022 to 2023 showed that 60 per cent of all managers employed in Jamaica are women. The ILO ranks the nation third globally for this statistic, behind Burkina Faso and Nigeria, which had 70 and 68 per cent, respectively.

Moses says that women taking up more important roles in sport and business doesn’t surprise him.

“As most people may agree, when you look at academic performances, in terms of people graduating, even from our universities, it’s been proven that more women are graduating from our universities than men,” he said. “We men seem not to be on that path as strongly as women.

“I think, at the end of the day, I would not be looking for a man or a woman specifically. I would invite anybody to interview, and if a woman tends to be the best candidate, then so be it. I think it’s just the way women have been developing their skills, and it really isn’t an issue that needs to be debated for any length of time.”

During the campaign for the JFF’s presidential election early in 2024, challenger Raymond Anderson promised a separate Women’s Technical Committee, headed by a woman. In response, Ricketts promised that local women’s football would undergo a major reconstruction. It could be argued that he delivered on this promise with the start of the Jamaica Women’s Premier League, but unlike Anderson’s promise, there was no appointment of a woman to a major role in the JFF since the election.

Fishley says appointing a woman as general secretary could double down on his promise.

“We do have women capable of it,” she said. “A lot of the teams that go abroad for tournaments are usually managed by women. So, the general secretary is just a larger extension of that. This person would be in charge of all the teams and of everything. For a country where the majority of our managers are women, and we’ve had success with women in power, I think this is the perfect opportunity. This is the perfect opportunity for Ricketts to say, ‘This was one of our promises, and we’ll definitely go ahead and look into that now and give some women some power within the JFF’.”

Fishley, like any other coach in the local women’s game, wants to see development of the women’s programme, but does not necessarily think it is underserved by a lack of women in higher administrative roles at the JFF, including the general secretary position.

“I honestly don’t think it’s a direct correlation between the number of women in charge and the support that women’s football gets,” she said. “I do think there’s an attempt to try to build women’s football, but I wouldn’t necessarily correlate it to the lack of women in certain positions.”

Fishley, however, says that without a FIFA mandate for national associations to have a national women’s league, national team, or national programmes, there might not have been as strong a thrust as seen by the JFF to develop the women’s game as it has locally.

JFF General Manager Roy Simpson has since been appointed as the interim general secretary, as the federation seeks a permanent successor to Chung. The JFF has not publicly mentioned a date for when they expect a permanent appointment.

FISHLEY… I do think there’s an attempt to try to build women’s football, but I wouldn’t necessarily correlate it to the lack of women in certain positions

MOSES…I think, at the end of the day, I would not be looking for a man or a woman specifically (Photo: Observer file)