‘They are going nowhere fast’
Jureidini says development hampered by lack of under-20 football
Published:Thursday | February 27, 2025 | 12:10 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
GENERAL MANAGER of Harbour View Football Club Clyde Jureidini is calling for a return of under-20 football competitions at the club level as he believes that a big part of young players’ development is compromised without it.
Jureidini said that apart from the St Catherine Football Association, no other parish association has staged an under-20 competition for the last 10 years.
According to Jureidini, the age-group players who would qualify for an under-20 competition mark a cohort that is at the most critical point in the life of their careers, the point at which they transition into the senior ranks.
“Three to five per cent of the players are going to become professional footballers. Others will play other competitions such as the Tier II or parish competition or go to universities and colleges overseas.
“But you are going to be losing 90 per cent of the footballers that you have been developing in your clubs and academies because the only competitions that run above age 17 are the Manning and daCosta Cup. That goes for the next two years until they are 19. But football development does not stop at 19. You are just getting into it.
“There are no under-20 competitions anymore for the last 10 years. There have been no under-21 competitions for about 12 years. So not many (youth) players can jump into your senior parish teams,” he reasoned.
He said that with the influx of academies, there are ever more young players being developed and that football organisers have not ensured that youth players, in the senior years of their development, get many opportunities to keep playing and developing so they can better make the transition into senior football.
“We are developing more players now because of the explosion of the academies. So we are developing more players at the base level, and when they get to maturity, there is no league to put them in. What are they going to do?
“You tell them prepare to be professional footballers and they cannot get any work. We are acting like we are developing them, but they are going nowhere fast,” he continued.
Jureidini believes that the absence of under-20 level competition across the island contributes immensely to Jamaica only qualifying for one U20 World Cup and no Olympic football tournaments.
“There’s no under-20 or under-21 competitions. So it is a stark reality that we have never qualified for an Olympic tournament in football, which is under-23.
“We have never qualified. So there is a lack of genuine development or the continuation to develop into maturity in our football development programme.
“Last year, there were three under-17 competitions. KSAFA had one, the JFF had one, and the PFJL had one, and going forward from this year, we are going to have an Under-17 World Cup every year.”
“We need to address the next stage after 19, which is under-21, and the next stage after under-21 is under-23 because before people really graduate out, we have to fill out our tertiary level of development “ he stated.
He added: “When you leave school, you go to work in a workplace if you want to work or you go into various institutions such as UTech or UWI or teachers’ college. If you want to do something else, you go to a specialised school and then you go into a career
“A lot of parishes don’t even have an under-17 competition. St Catherine have an under-20, but they do not have an under-17 anymore. Some players who played under-17 for us (Harbour View) last year transferred there (St Catherine) because they do not play under-17 anymore and they want to play football,” he said.