by Dr Cecile Dennis
Poor decision-making by the Michael Ricketts-led Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) leadership has resulted in the first-round elimination of Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz team from the 2024 CONCACAF competition.
Disputes between players and their governing bodies are nothing new, nor are such disputes new to the Jamaican football arena.
Italian men’s players in 2011, Bolton Wanderers’ players in 2018, Spain’s Women’s World Cup football team in September 2023, and the current Australian netball players’ strike over pay all demonstrate the fragility of player-associations relations worldwide.
While we cannot avoid labour disputes in sports, we must handle them in the best interest of all stakeholders – players, fans, and sponsors, and consequently protect and preserve hard-earned gains and reputation.
We have just seen our Reggae Girlz unbelievably crash out of the first round of the 2024 CONCACAF competition, immediately following their remarkable performance in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
The failure of the Jamaican team to perform at expected standards is the direct result of the disruption created by the Ricketts-led JFF team, through two poor yet critical decisions, namely, the termination of the coach whose energy and leadership style created strong synergy between himself and the team, and the ‘suspension’ of the Reggae Girlz who indicated their withdrawal from the team.
In a 2014 dissertation by GC Foster graduate Marlene Campbell examining the factors negatively impacting the poor performance of the Boys’ Town 2013/14 in the Red Stripe premier league, she highlighted the lack of team cohesion impacted by player departure, as the main factor leading to Boy’s Town’s poor performance and relegation threat in the Premier League competition.
The lack of cohesion was evident in a Jamaican team comprised of players who had no time to understand each other. Sports psychologists have repeatedly touted that a good player-coach relationship is critical to the team’s performance and that teams synchronize and work collectively towards their victory through the shared knowledge of a transactive memory system they develop through training and playing matches together.
Instead of considering the greater good of negotiating directly with the ‘Girlz’ at the table, just as the team of negotiators led by former Cricket West Indies President, Whycliffe “Dave” Cameron and Raymond Anderson did with the Reggae Boyz on behalf of JFF during the 2021 impasse, the JFF leadership punched its iron fist to the detriment of the team, fans, and sponsors, ultimately eroding our international ranking gains based on our 2023 World Cup performance. While Spain was able to field an entire replacement team and perform well in the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Jamaica could not.
Good leaders display the type of emotional intelligence that demonstrates deep and thoughtful decision-making rather than emotional, ego-driven actions. The ‘I-am-the-boss’ decisions to terminate the coach and suspend players, rather than foster good relations, ignored basic leadership rules of emotional intelligence, conflict management, and good governance, and certainly disregarded the labour relations rules of due process and equity, defined by FIFA as ‘fair play’. In all cases of players’ impasse mentioned here, one factor remained common throughout – the governing bodies sat at the table to negotiate a settlement with unhappy parties and resolved the issues.
If Jamaican football is to achieve its full potential it will require the kind of leadership that demonstrates good governance evidenced by competence, strong accountability, timely and effective communication, and stakeholder equity and inclusion. Hopefully, the January 14, 2024, JFF elections will accommodate this very needed change in the sport we all love – football.
Dr. Cecile Dennis is a human resource specialist, an assistant professor, and a former Jamaica national table tennis representative.
CaroleBeckford 