Walter Boyd

JAMAICA Football Federation (JFF) president Captain Horace Burrell said yesterday that Walter Boyd and Onandi Lowe, two players often at odds with former technical director Rene Simoes, will be back in the squad when Jamaica play Panama on May 14.

Burrell was speaking yesterday at the JFF headquarters where the Jamaica National Building Society presented awards to the winners of the JN Knock out football competitions and outstanding performers. He took the opportunity to outline further plans for the national football team.

In addition to Boyd and Lowe Burrell also said Paul Hall, Darren Moore, Ian Goodison, Theodore Whitmore and Andy Williams will join the list of overseas-based players to show for the Montego Bay game. The game will kick off at 4:00 pm.

Burrell also revealed that the game between Jamaica and Romania has been confirmed and will be played at the Lockhart Stadium in Fort lauderdale Florida on Wednesday, May 17 at 8:00pm. For this game Deon Burton, Marcus Gayle, Frank Sinclair and Fitzroy Simpson will join the other overseas-based players minus Paul Hall in the squad.

The Reggae Boyz were due to be in action again on May 21 in London against the Nigerians but that game has been called off for the second time. Last year the game was called of because it was scheduled too close to the Euro 2000 playoffs between England and Scotland.

Jamaica will not be idle for long though as on Saturday May 27 they take on the Colombians at the Giant Stadium in New Jersey. The busy schedule continues four days later when they take part in the King Hassan Cup in Morocco from May 31 to June 7. Also set to participate in this tournament are France, Japan and the host country.

At the end of the King Hassan Cup the Boyz will head to Brazil for a camp where they will remain until June 22. While in Brazil the team is expected to play "five international B games".

Before a ball is kicked in a friendly match or in competition, four members of the coaching staff will leave island today to watch games involving possible opponents in the semi-final round of the Football Confederation group.

New technical director Sebastiao Lazaroni heads to El Salvador to see them in action against Guatemala, Carl Brown journeys to Antigua to witness their game against St Vincent and the Grenadines, Peter Cargill will be in Trinidad and Tobago for their game against Haiti while Glaydston Ananias will look at the game between Honduras and Panama. All four are expected back in the island on Monday.

In the JNBS presentations, Hazard reaped the most success. They collected the winners trophy to go with their winners cheque of $200,000 which was earlier received. They also had the most valuable player in captain Shawn Sawyers. Christopher Bender was the winning coach.

Boys' Town's Rollin Francis was the leading scorer in the competition with four goals in five games. The referee and his assistants who officiated in the finals, Hughill Thompson, Anthony Garwood, Rinaldo Francis and Errol Morgan were presented with medals.