THE entire technical committee and coaching staff must join the departed Theodore Whitmore, that’s the sentiment of outspoken former national coach Geoffrey Maxwell.

Not only that. Maxwell believes that himself, Carl Brown and Bradley Stewart as the only coaches in Jamaica capable at this time to take the Reggae Boyz forward.

“What is facing us right now is called a crash programme. I think right now, if we are going to go locally, which is the best time right now, Carl Brown, Bradley Stewart and myself are the only three coaches capable at this level,” Maxwell reiterated.

“If we get anybody outside of myself, Carl Brown or Bradley Stewart, it will be musical cheers all over again. The coaches that they are thinking of do not know what it is to analyse in split seconds when you going wrong, when you need to change, what you have to do to draw the game what you have to do to win the game. I am not being critical, I am being realistic,” he noted.

Maxwell, regarded as top local student of the game by some, said he and the other coaches he mentioned are the most qualified in the country, and who possess the all-round skills to move Jamaica’s football in the “right direction”.

“Carl and myself have played at the highest level for the country, we have also both coached at the highest level, and Bradley Stewart is a brilliant tactical mind. He was in my mind, 60 per cent of Tappa’s success in the early years,” noted Maxwell.

“We brought in these Brazilians and changed our method and way of thinking. I am a Brazil person and I can tell you that this set doesn’t make sense. They have switched our method of playing with a sweeper system, which Simoes used to qualify, to that of a flat back four system which has left disastrous results,” said Maxwell.

Maxwell said a change in direction of the national programme is neeeded now.

“I am not being malicious and I am not being licky-licky, and I am not saying I don’t want the national coaching job. But I think, quite frankly, right now we need a change of direction and a change of personnel,” Maxwell told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

Following a dismal run in their World Cup campaign, head coach Whitmore resigned his position following the team’s 0-2 defeat to Honduras on Tuesday night.

“We have achieved the first objective, and we are trying to turn the programme around. The coach has been replaced, and I am hoping that the other coaches of the entire unit goes also. It is unfair to just target Whitmore as the fault. He can’t be the only fault,” stressed Maxwell.

He continued: “I think the technical committee head, in Howard McIntosh, should also go along with the technical committee. These are the people who supposed to guide the coaches in what can be done and what we need to achieve, and also be able to query the coaches in front of a body and find out what went wrong,” said the former national coach of the late 1980s.

“If they are going to be vexed so be it. But the hard reality is that they should be fired first,” he continued.

Maxwell, who has coached at almost all the Premier League clubs in Jamaica and is the current coach of Humble Lion, believes a coaching panel is needed right now to sit and discuss the way forward.

“We are talking about a crash programme. Whichever coaches are put there, they need to meet with all the Premier League coaches and they need to decide from now what type of system we are going to play… this is the type of wingbacks we need; this is the type of midfield players we are looking for. If you don’t have these qualities we are going to go outside and look for people. Thus putting the ultimatum on the local coaches,” he emphasised.

As for the overseas players that are still interested in representing Jamaica, Maxwell suggested that they should be put under more pressure to prove that they belong in the programme.

“We need to see you scoring, and we also need to know you are a first team starter, then you will be chosen. When foreign clubs come here to buy players they have to know the player can fit into their systems; they have to know that they can invest in him. What we are doing is taking up scrapsies,” he pointed out.

If given the job, Maxwell already has plans to take the Reggae Boyz forward starting with their must-win match on September 5.

“The next step, we do is try and get two practice matches. Get one against a team that we should beat in the National Stadium. What it does is bring back the confidence level to the players and bring back the confidence of the spectators with a little excitement. Then we get a team that we have to show our quality to play against before our game on the 5th of September.

“The last step that we need to do is send away one or two persons that can analyse football and watch the teams that we are going to play against and come back with information stating A or B,” he noted.

“I have spoken in the interest of the country, prove me wrong,” Maxwell concluded.