Let’s do more to support women’s football

In life, the goal should always be to improve, to learn from the past, whether that experience was positive or negative.

So we think Jamaica women’s national football team head coach Hubert Busby is on target when he says the team will benefit from last month’s 3-0 international friendly defeat to powerhouse France in that country.

The recent result follows defeat to Brazil mid-year – all part of the build-up to qualifying games ahead of the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

Readers will recall that the Jamaican Reggae Girlz rose to fame by reaching the knockout stages of the 2023 World Cup in Australia/New Zealand. Four years earlier, they broke the ice by qualifying for the world tournament in France.

After the last friendly match, Busby noted that the lack of time in training before the game had a negative impact on the team’s cohesion and performance.

However, he said: “…I thought overall the team got better as the game went on. I think these are the games we want to play. We just need to keep building…”

He expressed hope that the Reggae Girlz will improve in the upcoming home friendlies against South Africa.

He also spoke about the challenge of maintaining cohesion when new players need to be introduced.

“…You can see that (the team) is a little bit disjointed and the more we can continue to be together and continue to build as a group, the better we will be,” Mr Busby said.

We know that maintaining a stable core of players over time is always a challenge. We suspect this is particularly relevant since, as is well known, the Jamaican national women’s team is predominantly based overseas.

The long-term plan should be to build the local women’s soccer programs in such a way that Jamaica can compete well even if foreign talent is not available.

However, as the Concacaf Women’s Club League demonstrated earlier this year, the local club and schoolgirl leagues are woefully inadequate in terms of preparing our girls and young women for higher level competition.

Much more needs to be done.

We tend to believe that girls’ primary/prep school leagues can help.

Apart from the obvious benefits for national teams, we all know that well-organized and sponsored sports programs provide a pathway out of poverty and hopelessness for young people.

The biggest problem is always money. Government funding is limited, and Jamaican corporations are often reluctant to spend on programs that do not generate immediate advertising returns.

However, if we think about it, society as a whole would benefit greatly if our youth could be positively influenced.

And despite the obstacles here, there are a number of female footballers born and raised in Jamaica who have achieved success at the highest level, as demonstrated at the last World Cup.

For an example, we only need to look at Manchester City superstar Khadijah “Bunny” Shaw. A native of Spanish Town who started playing football with her brothers, Miss Shaw, who for one reason or another has not represented her country since the 2023 FIFA World Cup, is today among the world’s leading footballers.

It is within our power as a people to create many more like her, if only we tried.