Into the octagon - JFF approves of eight-team world cup qualifying final
Published:Tuesday | July 28, 2020 | 12:24 AMDaniel Wheeler/Gleaner Writer
President Michael Ricketts says that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) is content with the new Concacaf World Cup qualifying format, which sees Jamaica enter the final round with two additional teams.
The regional football governing body released the new framework yesterday for the final round which is scheduled to begin next June. The changes see the number of teams in the final round increase from six to eight. The top-five teams in the region, based on FIFA rankings as of July 16, qualify automatically, with the last three teams to be determined by a tournament involving the other 30 Concacaf nations. The Reggae Boyz qualify by having maintained their top five ranking. The top three teams will still qualify for the World Cup with the fourth-place team entering a continental play-off.
Ricketts says that they will now have enough time to structure their preparations and to approach potential partners for financial support.
“What it does, it gives us some time to plan a little better, for us to reach out to corporate Jamaica and the Government and to see how best we can market the programme from here on in,” Ricketts told The Gleaner. “We are comfortable with the new format and we just want to ensure that since we have to make some plans, we must now fully utilise it between now and June 2021 to ensure that it is best practices going forward.”
14 MATCHES
Previous plans were scrapped with the suspension of the September international window because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes will now see Jamaica playing 14 matches in the final round, more than they have played in previous final round campaigns, but Ricketts says that they will not be at a disadvantage.
“The JFF, I think, is comfortable with this new format so it’s just to work hard [and] prepare ourselves,” he said. “The coach (Theodore Whitmore) will now sit down and strategically plan how we are going to extract the maximum number of points from those 14 games.”
National senior men’s team manager Roy Simpson says that with the anxiety over the dates and format lifted, the team can properly plan for the challenge ahead. He is also optimistic that local and foreign-based players will return to normal competition by June and not experience COVID-19-related stoppages in play.
“Hopefully, by then everybody will be playing in their respective leagues in a normal way and then new players that the technical staff has an interest in, we can now scout them from competitive games,” Simpson said.
Concacaf President Victor Montagliani says the new format gives teams a fair opportunity to qualify while rewarding the top five teams in the region.
“All teams now have the chance to compete for direct access to Qatar 2022 and dream of playing at a World Cup, while we have also respected the positions of those nations which had mathematically qualified for the final round under the previous system,” Montagliani said.
The final round is expected to conclude in March 2022.