General Secretary of the Jamaica Football Federation, Dennis Chung, has commended the work done by Jamaican football’s governing body on the back of a busy calendar year of football in the country.
The Reggae Girlz and Reggae Boyz hosted seven games between them in Jamaica between September and November.
“It has been an extremely busy year. In September we had three games, in October we had two games and we had two games in November and anyone who knows what it takes to plan a game, it takes a lot of time, effort and resources,” Chung said at a press conference at the JFF offices on Thursday.
“We had so many events during the year so it was really good that we were able to manage through it. My commendations to the staff because I know the amount of work that they go through to put an event on or to mobilize a team, it is significant. The amount of money that we spent taking the women to the World Cup was about US $2 million. We have to manage all of that,” he added.
The Reggae Boyz hosted Honduras, Haiti and Canada in Concacaf Nations League A action while the Girlz hosted Canada in an Olympic Qualifier as well as Guatemala and Panama in a pair of Concacaf W Gold Cup qualifiers.
Chung also pointed out that despite some hiccups such as Visa issues for travelling parties, the federation was able to get through the year with no major hindrances.
“We are grateful for the activity that has happened and grateful, also, that we really have not had any incidents in the year. We had one or two hiccups when it relates to the Visa process but it didn’t cause any major dislocation,” Chung said.
“The first one had to do with the UK incident where the staff was late in getting their Visas because of the move of the processing from Jamaica to New York and then we had the incident of the U-15s going to Sweden. Outside of that I think we’ve had a fairly successful year administratively,” he added.
Without going into specific numbers, Chung also mentioned that the JFF were able to sort out some financial problems they were experiencing.
“The other thing that was initially a challenge for us was the administration of the accounting because, as you know, the JFF has been on restricted funding for a while but I’m happy to say that, based on how we’ve closed out the year and our interactions with FIFA, who we had invited to come here in November, I think we’re in a much better place,” he said.
“We would’ve gotten, during the year, a tax compliance certificate, which many companies in Jamaica do not have. We have been managing very well, certainly better than last year, in terms of the demands of the organization,” Chung added.
Chung also commented on renovations done to the Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence located at the University of the West Indies.
“We also did a lot of work at the center and we were able to host some national teams there. The Trinidad National Men’s team was there and the Guyana Men’s team was there as well. We were able to also rent out the facility. It’s now well renovated,” he said.
“2023 was a year of bringing all the chips together, ensuring we have the right capacity in place and we’re as productive as possible given the circumstances,” he added.
The current administration will now turn their attention to the upcoming JFF presidential elections scheduled for January 14, 2024.(Sportsmax).
