President of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) Michael Ricketts is pleased with the ongoing increase in the number of qualified coaches in the country. He was speaking at an official ceremony at the JFF Headquarters this week where a number of coaches received their badges adding to the growing number of certified football coaches across the island.
“We certainly want to highlight the work of our coaches and the JFF is intent on ensuring that our coaches are always at a premium as it relates to exposure, and certainly, qualifications,” the JFF boss said while addressing the coaches and officials on Tuesday.
Ricketts, who took office in 2017 after the passing of Captain Horace Burrell, added that more and more coaches across the country are earning their C and B level coaching licenses.
“When we got into office, there was not a single B-licensed coach and Jamaica now has 27 and I understand that there’s no other Caribbean country that has more than five.”
According to Ricketts, initiatives are already in place to ensure that the numbers continue to grow.
“Jamaica has 27 B-licensed coaches. There were 1264 primary schools that were playing without certified coaches when I got into office and we’ve started the B-license coaching seminar. St. James, St. Catherine, KSAFA, Manchester and St. Elizabeth have already been covered in recent times and we certainly will be looking to do the other eight parishes,” Ricketts says.
Ricketts also emphasized the importance of coaches getting these qualifications as early as possible.
“We are intent on ensuring that our coaches are of the best quality," he said.
"We have nine coaching educators and these are tasked with the responsibilities of preparing our C-licensed coaches and they have, for the last two or three months, been going around ensuring that coaches at the lowest level are so prepared that they can prepare players from 12 years and under to get into high schools, get scholarships, get into premier league teams, play overseas and, of course, to ensure that the social impact on our little boys and little girls is at a premium.
“I believe it is important that the best coaches should be at the 12 and under level because they represent the future of our football.”