"The great successful men of the world have used their imagination, they think ahead and create their mental picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building - steadily building."
Robert Collier
In 1994 when Captain Horace Burrell assumed the reins of President for
the Jamaica Football Federation, sports in Jamaica was never really viewed as a
serious proposition for brand owners and marketers, maybe because sports
administrators didn't have a bold vision or the will to think BIG and well
outside the proverbial box. I mean, it’s not like we didn't have trailblazing
sports men and women who made their names on the world stage and in the process
introduced brand Jamaica to the globe as a unique and trendsetting phenomenon.
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| Herb McKinley |
From as early as early 1948 Helsinki Olympics Dr. Arthur Wint and the
incomparable Herb McKinley showed the world how good we are and since then our
place on that stage as world beaters have continued to multiply in great
numbers.
Jamaican sportsmen & sportswomen excelled at almost anything they
had a mind to… Track & Field, Boxing, Netball, Table Tennis, Badminton,
Cricket and the list goes on.
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| Capt. Horace Burrell - JFF President |
However, it wasn’t until Captain Burrell uttered
his bold vision of Jamaica qualifying for the World Cup Finals 1998, that all of Jamaica took
a double take and in the good ole patois, most regular Jamaicans probably said "a
wha du dah bredda deh, wi nuh redy fi dat yet."
Suddenly, the brand owners and
marketers began to see a different paradigm for the way sports is managed,
sponsored and executed and suddenly, what seemed like a pipe dream to some had
others seeing dollar signs.
This was clearly no small feat and while the blue print was being created
on the go, bringing all the pieces together, there had to be some huge
psychological wars being waged. Neither the players, fans nor corporate Jamaica
would become believers in the vision if the coach who was going to take them to
the promise land was to be a Jamaican; it just wasn’t going to happen. Their experience
with local coaches managing the preparation of our teams/players wasn’t a
beacon of success and wouldn’t inspire confidence among the key would be
stakeholders.
First Base
This task required a foreign coach, after all Jamaica most successful
World Cup campaign prior came in 1965 under then coach Brazilian Jorge Pena. So
the bold Captain Burrell plan of qualifying Jamaica for the 1998 World Cup finals
needed a game changer, something large enough to make the entire country join
in the dream.
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| Brazilian - Prof. Rene Simoes |
The game changer came in the form of Professor Rene Simoes, another
Brazilian who bought into the vision and immediately was a hit with the
Jamaican media which made him likeable in the public domain.
This likability
was of course aided and abetted by our long time love affair with the artistry
of samba football, plus the Brazilians had just been crown World Cup Champions
1994, and immediately Simoes became the standard bearer for the nation’s
football and getting to first base was complete.
Second Base
Getting to second base involved winning the imagination of the players
available for selection. The professor’s job was to seduce the imagination of
the players, this he did by asking for a series of team camps in Brazil, just
imagine what going to Brazil must have done for the confidence and psychic of these
young men, some of which never boarded an air craft before and all of a sudden
they were in Brazil, a place every little who kicked a football daydreamed
about. Now the seduction of the players was complete and the program had stolen
second base.
Third Base
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| Reggae Boyz Fans |
With a man on first & second base we needed another hit to load
the bases in anticipation of hitting a grand slam home run… to do this captain Burrell needed
a solid hit with the fans to move the process along and seal the deal by
winning the love and adoration of the Jamaican public, after all sponsorship
wasn’t all there yet and somebody had to pay the bills.
We needed International
games… lots of games and captain was the master at getting these games
organized and selling them to the public.
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| Ricardo 'Bibi' Gardener |
We played and won so many games in the National Stadium that it was
renamed ‘the Office’ and the Jamaican public ate it all up, soon we were having
almost sold out stadium crowds for friendly matches.
With approximately 20k-25k
paying patrons at an average ticket price of $500, JFF was having gross
earnings of $10m-$13m per outing. With the public now totally sold, this was
evidence for captain to attract huge corporate sponsorships from the likes of
American Airlines, Grace Kennedy, Red Stripe, Sports Development Foundation and
a host of other contributing sponsors.
By the time the World Cup Qualifying matches came around, every team
in Concacaf feared coming to 'the office' because we had won something like (51)
consecutive games there. Just imagine the aura of 51 straight games at home without a loss... WOW!!!
To add insult to injury, we were making them play in 1pm sun hot with
a sea of yellow in the stands numbering upwards of 30,000 at an average of
$1000 per ticket... you do the math. All in all, one awesome sight to behold that was super
intimidating to the best of teams in World Football. Some of our most recognizable entertainers even came together and produced what is now the Reggae Boyz Anthem: http://youtu.be/wKATB0NjFgM
Grand Slam Home Run
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| Deon Burton |
Now the bases are full and we were half way through the qualifiers, Coach
Simoes and the JFF needed a grand slam home run to put the journey over the top
and into the World Cup Finals.
To do this, the team needed experience and goal
scoring punch, so the coach and his team went talent scouting in the diaspora
for players who were born to Jamaican immigrants particularly in England.
The
plan came up trumps again by finding the super six; Paul Hall, Fitzroy Simpson,
Robbie Earle, Marcus Gayle, Deon Burton & Frank Sinclair. The grand slam
was delivered on that faithful November day in 1997 inside 'the office' against
no lesser opponent than Mexico.
What began as a dream became a reality and the
rest of the story is a legend for Hollywood… hint hint!!!
To have pulled this off I cannot help but ask the question: Is captain Burrell….?
- A great leader par excellence
- A visionary in the right place at the right time
- Or a marketing guru
Whichever is your answer, it is safe to say that a blue print for
success would have been created, and with a little more thinking, tweaking and
planning to deepen the development of football, qualifying for the biggest show
on earth would become an activity in perpetuity; instead we have reverted to
being minnows in the sport globally.
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| Andy Williams |
·
So where did we go wrong?
·
Why have we missed out on 3 successive World
Cups since 1998?
·
What’s next?
Where did we go wrong?
While Captain, Simoes and the rest of the JFF team was busy getting
the team to qualify for the World Cup in France, they failed to see beyond the
original goal and omitted some key development steps for widespread growth of
the sport at all levels.
Consequently we failed to provide critical attention
to some glaring age old flaws in our football system:
- Bad playing surface is the single largest hindrance to the slow development of our youth players because it forces them into bad habits which are almost impossible to correct in later years.
- The full development of our Football Academy should have been our first priority after the World Cup and we should have seized the moment to get the eventual FIFA grant and made this a reality before the ensuing qualifying campaign for South Korea/Japan 2002.
- Failure to take full control of prep, primary and secondary school football programs, identifying the special talented kids early and place them in ongoing advanced development programs, this we could have done in tandem with the Brazilian connection we so skillfully cultivated.
- The development of our coaches especially the youth level coaches needed focus to deepen the pool of professional coaches to continue this development and forward progress.
- We missed the opportunity to corner all the stakeholders: Government, clubs, federation, sponsors and foreign investors with a view to create the right infrastructure and facilities for the sole purpose of a fully professional football league in Jamaica.
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| The Rt. Hon. Portia Simpson-Miller Prime Minister of Jamaica |
The economic windfall that would have ensued in Jamaica through sports and
in particular Football would have been epic and long lasting.
Job creation,
revenue generation, foreign direct investment, sports tourism & crime
reduction are all positives that could have resulted from just these five
ideas, truly one of the biggest missed opportunity since our independence in
1962, and we didn’t have to look further than the United States of America who
turned their local football into economic prosperity after staging the 1994
World Cup.
Today the US Major League Soccer (MLS) is drawing sold out stadium
attendance for club matches.
Why have we missed the last 3
World Cups?
Well, in addition to the (5) points above that were missed by the JFF to
implement after the World Cup 1998, there are a number of other key factors:
- With World Cup finalists now on his resume, Rene Simoes was more than marketable and it would have taken a whole lot more money to keep him here in Jamaica.
- One of the key components to the successful qualification was having all our players based in Jamaica for more than half of the campaign that facilitated them building a unit and team chemistry. This all changed after 1998 with some of our key players plying their trade overseas. Today the problem is even worse, more than 90% of any starting eleven now play their football in different countries.
- A number of the core players such as: Peter Cargill, Warren Barrett, Robbie Earl, Fitzroy Simpson, Walter Boyd & Linval Dixon had passed their prime and that left the JFF in a talent deficit
- Concacaf counterparts went back to the drawing table and improved while we stood still and in some areas regressed
- Credibility and trust worthiness among stakeholders as well as widespread nepotism in the selection of teams.
- A lack of professional behavior among key players understanding and taking responsibility for their personal physical development, nutrition and fitness, as a result Jamaica is unable to play good football for much more than one half.
- Implementation of a wide scale development program for the players who qualified for and have played in (3) youth World Cups since 1998. Just have a look at our players standing against their age group counterparts at the last Under 17 or Under 20 World Cups and the difference is a stark contrast.
Has the window of opportunity that opened after the World Cup in 1998
to truly develop Football in Jamaica closed..? Probably not but it’s ten times
harder now to achieve the same things that would have been almost automatic
after our maiden entrance to the World Cup finals.
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| FIFA President - Joseph Sepp Blatter JFF President - Capt. Horace Burrell |
It is my opinion that Captain Burrell needs to return to the well of
bright ideas again to recapture the imagination of the stakeholders yet again, only
this time it needs to be a plan to develop local football even ahead of making
it back to the World Cup Finals, if by chance we do both that would be great
but any sustained success at the highest level, starts and ends with local
development, which must include at the core the five points above listed under ‘where did we go wrong’.
It is also my opinion that the next Rene Simoes (Technical Director) must
have far more involvement and interest in the overall development of Jamaica’s football
and not just the senior men’s team, it quite possibly hasn’t been their fault if
it wasn’t included in the mandate given at the point of engagement, in which
case the administration must see this as their short sightedness.
Unlike the 1994 Burrell ensemble, this plan and execution needs
greater participation from all stakeholders especially those outside the
immediate football fraternity. By that I mean, Burrell must open the otherwise
closed football inner circle to galvanize help from near and far; strategic
thinkers, business analysts, marketers, successful business leaders and other
professionals are all available here and in the diaspora ready and willing to
give of themselves if asked. Fact is, the Jamaican people have waited for 14
years since 1998 for a coherent plan to show the way forward and today we are
still asking… when?
So captain Burrell, dare to dream again you’ve done it before and we
tipped our hats and lauded you “job well done…” but as I know you are
infinitely aware, the dynamics are different now and it will take a far more
complex and comprehensive plan to deliver the goods yet again.
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