Wed | Sep 24, 2025

Embassy of Belgium gifts football equipment to JFF

Published:Wednesday | September 24, 2025 | 12:12 AMKaren Madden/Gleaner Writer
From left: President of the Jamaica Football Federation Michael Ricketts, Belgian Ambassador to Jamaica, Her Excellency Ellen de Geest, President women's football, Elaine Walker-Brown, and young Reggae Girl, Shauntai Prycee, pose with training kits donated
Ian Allen
From left: President of the Jamaica Football Federation Michael Ricketts, Belgian Ambassador to Jamaica, Her Excellency Ellen de Geest, President women's football, Elaine Walker-Brown, and young Reggae Girl, Shauntai Prycee, pose with training kits donated by the Embasy of Belgium during a ceremony at the Ambassador's residence yesterday.

BELGIUM’S AMBASSADOR to Jamaica, Ellen de Geest, during the handover of equipment to Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz at her residence yesterday, says, as part of her country’s foreign policy, she wants to support women’s football in Jamaica.

Also present was Jamaica Football Federation President Michael Ricketts, who wants the fledgling partnership, not just to continue, but to extend toward the Jamaica Women’s Premier League in a bid to help the local development of players.

“Today is the start of what we think is something that will be productive and long-lasting for the local league as well. So we are very, very excited. We have been given boxes of footballing equipment, balls, shirts, cones, all kinds of equipment. So we want to have kind of a bilateral arrangement so that they [Belgium] can help us with equipment and then from a technical standpoint because they do have an excellent coaching education programme.”

According to de Geest, the partnership with the JFF and particularly the women’s programme will ensure that both countries benefit from the expertise each offers.

“It’s also part of our foreign policy because one of the priorities of our policies is to support women and girls so that’s also why we particularly reached out to the federation and particularly the women’s senior and junior teams because we would like to support you.

“That is not only part of our foreign policy, also nationally we still have some work to do there because I am sure most of you know one or two famous male Belgian football players in different leagues who are quite famous, not so many females, so nationally we are trying to support women’s football and this is a part of that.

“We hope it’s not just today. It’s not just the handing over, but we hope this can be the beginning of a fruitful mutual collaboration between the Jamaica and the Belgium football associations.”

Although Belgium have made yearly appearances in the UEFA Women’s Football qualification tournament since 1991, they have never qualified for the FIFA World Cup.

Jamaica, on the other hand, have the distinction of becoming the first English-speaking Caribbean country to make it to the global showpiece in France in 2019 and bettered that performance in 2023 when they made it to the round of 16 in Australia.

The Jamaicans will begin the hunt for another unprecedented appearance at a FIFA World Cup when they contest the first round of Concacaf qualifiers in November.

The Reggae Girlz, who have been drawn in group B alongside Guyana, Nicaragua, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda, must top their group to progress.

The 2027 FIFA World Cup will be held in Brazil.