Paul-Andre Walker, Staff ReporterJAMAICA WILL have to wait before it can take part in the inaugural CONCACAF Beach Soccer Tournament which was scheduled to begin this month in South Beach, Florida.
The Jamaicans, who have been in training on and off for the past few months have only recently been told that the competition has been postponed until midway through September, though no specific date has been forwarded to the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF).
TWO GROUPS
Facing the disappointment along with the Beach Reggae Boyz will be five other CONCACAF teams which were split into two groups of three.
Group A features United States, Canada and Jamaica, while Mexico, Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands make up Group B.
The top two teams from each group, when the competition is rescheduled, will play in the semi-finals while the teams that finish last in their groups will have a play-off to decide fifth and sixth place.
The reason behind Jamaica's involvement is with a view to making it to the World Cup of Beach Football, with CONCACAF having two spots for the November 2-12 event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Those spots, of course, go to the finalists of the competition.
JFF general secretary Burchell Gibson, while pointing out that the postponement will cost his organisation more because of a prolonged preparation period, it could be a blessing in disguise.
TIME TO PREPARE
"It will cost us more to prepare the team, but it might be helpful because the beach soccer tournament (Red Stripe Light Beach Futbol) is currently taking place," Gibson said.
"The team was picked from the last two seasons of the competition but there could be late developments from this season that we could benefit from," he said.
According to Gibson, while an official reason for the postpone-ment was not given, he had information that there were some logistics problems with hosting it in the U.S.
The tournament will now be held in Costa Rica.
