(From left) JFF's general secretary Dennis Chung; Tony James, former JFF president and outgoing Reggae Girlz Head coach Lorne Donaldson.
As the dust continues to settle on the Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) controversial non-renewal of Lorne Donaldson’s contract to head the Reggae Girlz programme, former JFF president Tony James believes the outcome could have been different had both parties tempered their egos.
James is of the view that neither the Michael Ricketts-led JFF, represented by general secretary Dennis Chung, nor Donaldson really considered the bigger picture, which was to place the Reggae Girlz and their progress at the forefront of the decision-making process to arrive at a more amicable settlement.
In fact, while noting that Donaldson’s outspoken personality may have led to his ousting, James was by no means reserved in his criticism of the JFF, especially given the Girlz overwhelming success under the outgoing coach’s leadership.
“No responsible organization is going to have its employees in the public making negative comments about the federation. The JFF has the authority to run football in Jamaica and there can be no questions about that and then there is the case of everybody having an ego which is not such a bad thing,” James remarked.
“The issue is that when you are excessive then you have a problem, so the ego has to be balanced. I am not approving one side; both sides needed to temper their ego and place the Girlz at the centre of their issues. Everybody is on a tangent and once you put the Girlz at the centre and they (JFF) apply good governance principles, I don’t think you would have had the same result,” he told Sportsmax.tv.
James argued that the national development of football should always be of utmost priority for the JFF hierarchy and its Technical Committee, despite personal feelings.
As such, he believes the decision to cut the country’s most successful coach, should have been discussed with certain stakeholders, to include women’s football ambassador Cedella Marley, who has significantly invested in the programme.
It was Marley, who first introduced Donaldson and former Head coach Hue Menzies to the Reggae Girlz programme in 2015, and the two led the country to an historic first FIFA Women’s World Cup appearance in France in 2019.
However, after Menzies departed the programme in late 2019, Donaldson followed suit a few months later, but was reappointed in June 2022, to replace Vinimore “Vin” Blaine, who was forced to resign a few months into his tenure after the players expressed their displeasure with his leadership in a scathing letter.
Like he did in 2019, Donaldson again led the Reggae Girlz to the World Cup, jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, where they had an historic run to the round of 16, after drawing with France and Brazil and defeating Panama in the group stage.
The Reggae Girlz eventually bowed out following a 0-1 loss to Colombia.
In their most recent fixtures, the Reggae Girlz suffered back-to-back losses to Canada in a failed bid to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, but the progress the team has made under Donaldson’s leadership is without question.
“You can’t take sides, you have to look on every stakeholder and see what they are bringing to the table and if you have good governance principles then you should discuss it with at least the major stakeholders.
“Cedella Marley is a major stakeholder, have they discussed it with Cedella Marley?” James questioned.
“And in all this the Girlz should be the front of the equation, there are representatives of the Girlz who are very vocal and very focused, you should have called them in and say ‘listen, here is our position. What is your view because I am sure they are going to get a view that is not in agreement with that decision by the JFF,” James continued.
The former football boss also took issue with the JFF’s widely circulated release stating that the decision to part ways was with Donaldson was mutual, as the coach refuted the claims and revealed that the meeting with Chung and JFF’s Human Resource Manager Suzie George-Gayle, lasted a mere five minutes.
The JFF statement said, “after an extended discussion, both parties came to an agreement that the contract would not be renewed.”
James said this again called the JFF’s character into question.
“And again, that is against governance principles. Discussion and respect are a part of good governance principles, so a five-minute thing, I don’t know what you call that, it is just disrespectful,” he opined.
“If the context of what the man [Donaldson] said is true, the press release emanating from that is also false then, because it said that they were in agreement. So, once it says that, and you bring false into it, then it doesn’t put JFF in a good light because there are other things people are going to assume are false,” James noted.
Upon reflection, James recalled the fact that Donaldson was not the initial first choice for the JFF from the onset.
It was Englishman Jonathan Morgan, who found favour with the JFF Technical Committee. However, Morgan later received an offer from Burnley Women’s team and opted out of the race for the Girlz top job, which resulted in Donaldson taking the reins.
“I think that is what is ticking off the JFF, the fact that coach Lorne Donaldson was not selected by them. So, what is embarrassing to the Technical Committee is that they chose someone [Morgan] and Cedella Marley chose a different person [Donaldson] and that person has worked miracles,” James reasoned.
“So, people should be willing to eat humble pie in the context of national importance given the success and progress made in that (World Cup) campaign and say alright let us look at it (Donaldson’s contract) again.
“From there, they could then lay down the plan, not only to Lorne, but to everybody in the national programme that you have to seek permission to speak on certain matters and if you don’t follow the guideline, you will be severely sanctioned,” he explained.
“But the thing with the Girlz programme is that you don’t know who has the authority to speak because you don’t hear anything from anybody else. So, I am not sure who is making the decision for the JFF, if it is the Technical Committee or the Board of Directors, nobody really knows, so apparently all legislation is left to this fellow [Chung],” James ended.
Sherdon Cowan is a five-time award-winning journalist with 10 years' experience covering sports.
St. Benedict’s College defeats Fatima College 3-1 in SSFL top-of-the-table clash
St. Benedict’s College secured a 3-1 win over Fatima College in a top-of-the-table clash in Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) Premiership action at the Mahaica Sporting Complex.
Goals from Captain Derrel Garcia in the 42nd and 59th minutes and a third from Ethan Trotman in the 80th secured the win and allowed them to move to 19 points from seven matches, three ahead of Fatima who have a game in hand.
Micaiah Leach gave Fatima the lead in the 30th minute.
Elsewhere, Arima North Secondary defeated San Juan North 2-1 at Bourg Mulatrasse. Micha’el John gave Arima the lead in the 42nd minute before Lindell Sween got the equalizer for San Juan North just a minute later.
Jahmarley Caleb got the winner for Arima North ten minutes from full time. The win moved Arima North up to fourth in the table with 14 points from eight games while San Juan remain in ninth with nine points from their eight outings.
A Kristian James 66th minute goal gave St. Mary’s College a 1-0 win over East Mucurapo Secondary at Mucurapo Road.
Presentation College got the biggest win of the day, a 5-0 victory over Speyside High at Mannie Ramjohn Stadium.
Thanks to goals from Vaughn Clement, Cody Cooper, Isaiah Jacob, Caleb Boyce and Duhrell Young, Presentation are now third in the table with 16 points from seven games. Speyside have four points from just five games to lie second from bottom at 15th.
Hosts Signal Hill Secondary suffered a 1-2 defeat at the hands of Queen’s Royal College. Kyle James got the goal for Signal Hill while the QRC goals came from Teshaun Franklin and an own goal from Raevion Marshall.
QRC are fifth in the standings with 13 points from eight games while Signal Hill are 11th with eight points from seven games.
In the day’s other games, St. Anthony College beat Miracle Ministries Pentecostal High School 3-1 at Westmoorings while a 12th minute Sumba Cudjoe strike gave St. Augustine Secondary a 1-0 win over Trinity College East at Trincity.
Calabar edge STATHS 1-0 to assume pole position in Zone D of Manning Cup; reigning champions Clarendon College among winners in dCup
Calabar High School regained pole position in Zone D of the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/Digicel Manning Cup following a 1-0 win over St Andrew Technical (STATHS) in a top-of-the-table clash at their Red Hills Road base on Saturday.
Jaheim Rankine got the all-important strike in the 34th minute to extend their unbeaten run across five matches and push Calabar up to 16 points, same as STATHS, who were relegated to second with a slightly inferior goal difference. Haile Selassie (nine points), Camperdown (seven points), Vauxhall (six points) and Kingston Technical (zero point) complete the standings.
Winning coach Andrew Price welcomed the character shown by his team on this occasion to overturn their first leg loss, as players occupied unfamiliar position.
“The players are resilient; we played today without two of frontline central defenders so we had to patch up the team today and people played in positions that they don’t normally play in. But we have a system that we have been playing for the entire season and once people fit into the system, then the team will play well and they showed some depth and character today to get the three points against a very good STATHS team,” Price said.
“I think we needed to be a bit more clinical in front of goal, but our strength is our defensive structure; we have only conceded two goals so far in the entire Manning Cup, which shows that we are very sound defensively, and we want to keep it that way. We are developing a football culture here at the school and we are going to continue to work diligently to ensure that we get some success along the line,” he added.
STATHS started more purposefully and created a few half chances in the early exchanges as the teams battled heavy underfoot conditions due to afternoon showers.
The Bumper Hall-based team should have broken the deadlock approaching the 20th minute mark but Ajetai Marshall muffed his effort from close range.
Calabar got into their rhythm and went close to finding the lead at the half-hour mark, but Rankin’s left-footed shot from a distance was parried by Jaheem Williams in goal for STATHS.
It is often said if you fail to succeed try again, and Rankine did just that to put Calabar in front as he released an even more delightful strike from about 30 yards out that had Williams beaten all ends up.
Calabar went close to doubling their advantage in 41st, but Williams got down well to his right on this occasion to steer Jayden Perry’s left-footed shot from outside the 18-yard box wide.
With the score unchanged at the break, STATHS made a push for the equaliser but failed to create any meaningful chances, and frustration inevitably set in, resulting in Alexavier Gooden being sent off for a second yellow in the 54th.
The numerical advantage created a few openings for Calabar, the best of which came in the 61st Rankine, who rounded the goalkeeper but selfishly went for shot from a tight angle instead of floating a cross in for Perry.
As the game approached its end, substitute Christiano Brown thought he stole a point for STATHS when she slid one through the goalkeeper’s legs, but the goal was belatedly flagged for an offside.
That left Head coach Phillip Williams disgusted as he called out the officiating as the worst part of the encounter.
“It is unfortunate that ISSA has invested so much and the schools have invested so much and the poor officiating just takes away from the game. I think that was the worst thing today; both teams played some decent football but the officiating needs to be better.
“I think what we didn’t do today was score, we have a style of football that we play and we played that today even when we went down a man but referees need to be better in Jamaica, they are very poor,” a disappointed Williams said.
Saturday’s Manning Cup Results
Calabar 1, STATHS 0
Dunoon Park 0, Eltham 0
Ardenne High 0, Hydel High 8
Ascot High 0, Jamaica College 5
Excelsior High 15, Pembroke Hall 0
Holy Trinity 0, St George’s College 5
Camperdown 0, Vauxhall 0
Saturday’s daCosta Cup Results
Munro 0, Maggotty 0
Manchester 1, Belair 0
Glenmuir 4, Old Harbour 0
Ocho Rios 8, Ferncourt 1
Anchovy 1, Green Island 2
McGrath 0, Dinthill 0
Maldon High 4, St James 1
Irwin High 1, Cornwall College 4
Green Pond 5, Herbert Morrison 2
Grange Hill 0, Godfrey Stewart 1
Mannings 6, Little London 0
Muschett 0, Cedric Titus 13
Spot Valley 0, William Knibb 0
Happy Grove 2, Morant Bay 0
Tacius Golding 0, Charlemont 3
Cross Keys 1, DeCarteret College 5
Newell 0, Lacovia 1
B.B Coke 1, STETHS 3
Claude McKay 0, Clarendon College 7
Central 2, Edwin Allen 1
Knockalva 0, Frome Tech 8
Cambridge 1, Rusea’s High 3
Toronto FC 0-1 Inter Miami: Campana's stoppage-time strike keeps visitors on track for MLS record
Leonardo Campana scored the winner in stoppage time to keep Inter Miami on course to beat the regular-season points record in MLS as they defeated Toronto 1-0.
With Miami having secured the Supporters' Shield by beating the Columbus Crew in midweek, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez were benched for Saturday's trip north of the border.
But the duo came on to help Gerardo Martino's team to a victory that moved them up to 71 points with one game remaining.
The points record of 73 was set by the New England Revolution in 2021, and it is the Revs who visit Miami in the final regular-season game later in October.
Toronto got off to the better start as Kobe Franklin latched onto the end of Jonathan Osario's cross to shoot from a tight angle but saw his effort saved.
Despite further chances for Richie Laryea and Prince Osei Owusu, Toronto struggled to find a breakthrough, and substitute Suarez proved decisive as he delivered a first-time cross into the centre of the box, which Campana controlled and duly fired home a 93rd-minute winner.
The defeat dealt Toronto a blow to their ambitions of obtaining a playoff spot this season, opening the door for the Philadelphia Union, D.C. United and Nashville SC behind them in the Eastern Conference.
Data Debrief: Miami's stopping power
For Miami, the focus on adding an MLS record to their first Supporters' Shield triumph has seemingly helped keep them going this term. They have scored 15 goals in the last 15 minutes of the second half this season; only the Colorado Rapids and Portland Timbers have scored more such goals in the league in 2024.
On the other hand, Toronto have conceded 23 goals in the last 15 minutes of the second half - no team has conceded more in MLS this term.
Toronto have taken just one point from the last 15 on offer, and their slump has come at the worst possible time.
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