Mixed reactions to additional games for bottom six

Humble Lion head coach Andrew Price and Ludlow Bernard, the head coach at Harbour View, have conflicting views on the format for this year's National Premier League.

At a press conference yesterday, the Professional Football Jamaica Limited (PFJL) announced June 26 as the start date for the league, which will run for four months until late September. The season will mark the return of the local top flight football after a hiatus of 14 months which included delays and months of discussions between the PFJL officials and the Government.

When attempting to restart last year, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) outlined a 22- game regular season followed by the league playoffs. For this year, the season has been reduced further to only one round (11 games for each team) with round-robin games for both ends of the table. Those ranked seven through 12, will play each other to determine final placings, while those who finish third through sixth will battle each other for two of the four semi-final places. Those who finish in the top two are automatic semi-finalists.

In detailing the reasons for this change of format, the JFF's competition chairman, Gregory Daley, said they wanted to maintain some interest in the competition for those lower-ranked teams, given the short nature of the season.

Daley said one of the things they looked at is that after the 11-game season, the bottom six were likely to have no further interest in the competition. He said they added the extra games to allow teams to play on for their final positions. "We know that the position affects their prizes," Daley said while adding that they also wanted the bottom six teams to play more games in a shortened season.Price said that he welcomed the opportunity for more games considering the long inactivity.

"Under normal circumstances, the bottom six would have stopped playing once the top six have been selected," Price told STAR Sports, "So this gives the bottom six an opportunity to play more games and also gives them more prize money because it's a second opportunity to see how further up the table you can get."

However, Bernard said that unless the monetary benefits are substantial, there is no point in playing further once the top six have been determined, with potential problems down the road if clubs have problems fielding teams because of injuries or other factors.

"To go ahead and to play something after the fact, after the top six has been decided, is pointless unless you have some serious financial benefits associated with it which I really doubt. And, of course, there is really little motivation for playing these games," Bernard said. "As a matter of fact, you are begging for trouble." The Harbour View head coach said that once one to six has been decided teams seven to 12 should be ranked immediately.

No competitive football has been played locally since March 2020 when the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2019/20 season.