Photo by Richard Morais
Former FIFA referee Steve Bucknor, Trelawny FA president Linnel McLean, Westmoreland FA president Everton Tomlinson, Village United coach Paul 'Tegat' Davis, Western Confederation president Bruce Gaynor and St. James FA president Orville Powell are caught in a contemplative mood during Thursday's Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's Western Bureau in Montego Bay.

Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor

A NUMBER of key players in western Jamaica's football are convinced that strengthening the marketing arm is a key element for elevating its status, according to feedback from an Editor's Forum hosted by The Gleaner at its Western Bureau on Thursday.

Clubs from that section of the country once held the glamour positions, dizzying heights really, winning an astounding eight of 10 possible championships through the 1986-87 season when Seba United became the first club from outside the Kingston and St. Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) to win; until 1996-97 when Violet Kickers beat Reno, to secure their second title.

No Premiership status

Even more startling is the fact that since 1997-98, when Waterhouse turned back Seba, no team from the Western Confederation has played in an NPL final. The closest they have come since was four years ago when relative newcomers then, Village United, made the semis.

Today, the Trelawny club holds the distinguished position as one of only two Western Confed teams with Premiership status.

The other, Westmoreland's Reno, are sleeping giants - with three titles (the last in 1990-91) - who barely clung to their place while surviving a relegation battle that went right down to the last match.

That has become an all too familiar scenario for western clubs and a dubious St. James first ... no club in the Premier League.

"The state of football is at its lowest," noted Orville Powell, chairman of the Western Confederation and president of the St. James Football Association, which at one point had as many as five representatives in an NPL season. "When the foundation is not solid it's hard to build.

"We have to change the way we look at football ... as a social value and it's big business," added Powell, who is also the president of Seba, who were demoted last season.

Business aspect

The man Powell replaced at the helm of the Western Confed, Everton Tomlinson, who also wears the hat of Westmoreland Football Association (WFA) president, blamed the demise on the way the business aspect was dealt with.

"The missing element is marketing," he said. "The football product needs good marketing people to survive in this world. Without the marketing aspect there is no hope."

Marketing has become an increasingly important factor since the league went into a transitional phase from amateur to semi-professional at the turn of the decade. It meant straight up commitments with contracts and salaries that all the clubs found hard to maintain in the climate of change.

It presents a stark contrast to the glory days of the west when, as several of the football bosses in the forum pointed out, there were men with "long pockets" who used to finance the clubs with money made from the drug trade.

"Gone are the days when you had people with long pockets to support a team," remarked Linnel McLean, a former KSAFA president, who now heads the Trelawny FA. "We are not where we'd like to be, mainly because of the economics in the parish. To make money, you really have to be looking to market players. The clubs in the west weren't doing that, they were buying players and spending a lot of money."

Professional people

A number of Jamaican-bred players now ply their trade in pro leagues in the United States and Britain but, with the exception of Portmore United, a vast majority, if not all, are attached to KSAFA clubs and made the switch through some contractual arrangement that involved money being pumped into their local club.

"The clubs need to employ professional marketing people. The only asset the clubs have are the players and if you are looking to sell players we need strong marketing teams," said Tomlinson.