On this 2016 file photograph, Elaine Walker-Brown (proper), the Jamaica Soccer Federation ladies’s soccer chairperson, presents the championship trophy to Barbican FC gamers following their victory over Waterhouse within the JFF/Sport Growth Basis Girls’s League mid-season last at Lime Tree Grove. (Picture: Observer file)
Whereas there’s optimism across the begin of the rebranded Jamaica Girls’s Premier League scheduled to kick off this weekend, its most profitable crew Barbican FC, is not going to take part this season or in any future seasons, because the membership has ceased operations.
The report 12-time champions haven’t participated within the league since 2016 once they claimed their ninth-straight maintain on the title. As a result of monetary state of the ladies’s league during the last eight years, Barbican opted to not enter.
Nevertheless, with the Skilled Girls’s Soccer Jamaica Restricted (PWFJL) taking management of the league and a number of other main company sponsors approaching board, it was felt that the perennial champions would make their long-awaited return.
However Barbican’s former Head Coach and Technical Director Charles “Charlie” Edwards informed the Jamaica Observer that the membership is nearly defunct.
“It doesn’t exist anymore. The gamers had gone off to different golf equipment, a few of them stepped away from the sport and even some who went to different golf equipment have now given up the sport due to age; it’s been six, seven years out of the sport and so they’ve moved on with their lives,” he mentioned.
“The reality is that it was unhappy as a result of I actually cherished it and it was programme to mentor and direct the ladies, however the reality of the matter is it grew to become a burden for us. I’m not able to take something out of my pocket for soccer anymore. I’m undecided if Barbican will take into consideration placing a feminine soccer crew ahead once more and I don’t assume I’d be there to do this,” Edwards added.
Barbican initially supposed to make their comeback in 2024 however Edwards says the results of the controversial Jamaica Soccer Federation election final yr killed their revival plans.
“We held onto hope of going again into the league and final yr we made an try. We have been getting sponsorship from a pair individuals however because of the election hiccups that have been happening, lots of people backed away from us and it form of left a foul style in my mouth,” he mentioned. “For me to return into the league, it needs to be completely sponsored.
Barbican gained league titles from 2002 to 2004 and 2008 to 2016 and produced a number of gamers for Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz together with Tashana Vincent, Alicia James, Jodi-Ann McGregor and Shantel Bailey.
Whereas happy with the achievements, Edwards says he has no regrets in strolling away.
“The women did effectively, labored arduous and reaped the simply rewards. However on the finish of the day, these items don’t pay the payments. Data and accomplishments don’t pay the payments,” he mentioned.
“Whenever you do soccer in Jamaica, particularly the ladies’s league, it takes rather a lot out of you financially and lots of people don’t perceive that. When COVID got here round is once I realised how a lot financially I used to be drained and I made myself a promise that it wouldn’t occur once more, so I needed to step again and I’m on a brand new path to rebuild myself.”
Though not ruling out a return to the ladies’s sport sooner or later, Edwards says he’s eager to see how the brand new ladies’s league performs out.
“What’s essential for me proper now could be seeing a brand new physique like the boys’s premier league that’s going to orchestrate and run the ladies’s league, which I assumed ought to have occurred a very long time in the past. It’s good to see it taking place now; there’s plenty of sponsorships and it augurs extraordinarily effectively for the ladies’s programme,” he mentioned.
“Perhaps sooner or later, it can entice me however for the time being, I haven’t seen the league off the bottom as but or how it is going to be organised so I’m just about sitting again and watching. I’d wish to see a number of the video games and observe what’s happening and also you by no means know what tomorrow could convey.”
