JFF eyeing early 2022 for restart of women’s league

Janice Rose-Brown, director of operations - public relations and events at the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), says the federation has been working with local stakeholders for the resumption of the women's competition in early 2022.

There have been numerous calls from the local fraternity for the restart of the women's football competition which was last played in 2018.

Rose-Brown told STAR Sports that the women's league forms a very crucial part of the development of local female talent and the JFF has been working behind the scenes to have the competition begin at the start of next year.

"It is a significant priority of the federation to try and get the women's league up and running and discussion has started internally towards this," said Rose-Brown.

Pretty high quality

"We think that it is not likely to be possible before January, but the main thing is that when it returns, we want it to be of a pretty high quality," she said.

Rose-Brown underscored that they are also planning to professionalise the local women's league.

"We are hoping and planning to put the women's league in a similar direction that we have put the men's league, which is to intensify the professionalism of the league," Rose-Brown said.

National senior women's coach Hubert Busby Jr said he welcomes this news by the JFF because it the very important for local players to get back on the field of play.

He also pointed out that there are a lot of young talented players in Jamaica but with the absence of the competition, it is going to very difficult to identify these players.

"It is imperative that we provide opportunities for our local players but the safety of the players is paramount. It looks like we are on the right track which is great to hear and so we are all for that," said Busby Jr.

It (the league) provides opportunities for our younger players to matriculate through to the senior team and to international club teams around the world," he said.

" Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic played havoc with leagues around the world, so this is a great first step for us to resume play for local female players at the start of the new year," Busby Jr said.