Challenge Cup sets stage revival of community football

With the inaugural Popeye’s Challenge Cup to get under way today, Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) President Michael Ricketts said the competition will bring high-quality games back to communities islandwide.

Ricketts welcomed the Challenge Cup and said it has brought back a new wave of excitement for Jamaican football.

“It has been a while that we have not had a competition of this nature, so we are very, very excited at the prospect and it's certainly brought back a level of interest,” Ricketts said.

“There are 18 teams from the Championship and seven from the Premier League, which will mean that a number of community teams will actually participate in this knockout competition,” he continued.

“It is good to see that this is a national competition, so I think every parish should be represented and I want to reiterate, it means that there will be a lot of football in these respective communities.”

The Challenge Cup will be the first all-island knockout competition in Jamaica since the Lynk Cup, which was last played in 2023. The JFF Champions Cup, another iteration of a national knockout, was last played in 2014. 

COMPETITION FORMAT

The Challenge Cup is a seeded knockout competition that will see the higher-ranked teams entering the competition at the later stages.

The first round will get under way today with the 14 lowest-ranked teams from the Jamaica Football Championship (JFC) opening their campaign.

The seven winners will advance to the second round of the Challenge Cup, where they will join up with the fourth-ranked team from the JFC.

The third round will introduce six of the Jamaica Premier League (JPL) teams who will join up with the winners of the second round, as well as the second- and third-ranked JFC clubs.

The fourth round will be the quarter-finals, where the winners from round three will join up with the JPL champions and the top-ranked JFC team.

From there on, the competition will continue in a knockout format without seeding until the final, where a champion will be crowned on June 9.

The winner will be crowned the national cup champions and will receive $1 million in prize money.

There will also be a $50,000 prize for the competition’s leading goalscorer as well as the winning coach.

gregory.bryce@gleanerjm.com

Today’s games

Reno vs St Bess United at Llandilo Sports Complex

Baptist Alliance vs STETHS Elite at Heartsease Community Centre

Meadforest vs Progressive at Bell Chung Oval

Falmouth FC vs Holland PYC at Elliston Wakeland Centre

All games begin at 3:30 p.m.

Caption B1 (Second) Popeye'sCupAL_7: The Challenge Cup trophy is displayed during the competition’s launch at the office of the Jamaica Football Federation last week.

Caption B1 (Second) Popeye'sCupAL_1: Jamaica Football Federation President Michael Ricketts speaks during the launch of the Challenge Cup at his organistion’s office last week.