Thursday, August 10, 2006

by Gary Smith
Caribbean Net News Sports Correspondent
Email: gary@caribbeannetnews.com

KINGSTON, Jamaica: Jamaica national senior and Olympic football coach, Windell Downswell has resigned from his post, reports from the island stated on Wednesday.

Downswell submitted a letter of resignation to the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), which took effect last Friday, after serving as coach for almost two years.

The man who took over from Carl Brown in 2004 has been under severe heat, following a string of poor international results, which included a 6-0 hammering at the hands of European giants England. However JFF President Crenston Boxhill said Downswell "served well" during his stint and acknowledged the coach for his contributions.

"He (Downswell) has served well and I think he has done a fairly good job; in fact there was a time when he had a very good run as national coach," Boxhill said in a released statement on Monday.

He, however, added: "With the results that we had been getting recently there was no way that things could continue the way that they were going."

Meanwhile, though admitting to a poor run in the latter part of his stint, Downswell thought he did a good job with the little resources he had at hand.

"With the limited resources, look at what I have accomplished," Downswell was quoted as saying in a report on Wednesday. "Yes, we might have gotten some healthy beatings in the last part....that is somewhat disappointing, but if you look at the success at the regional level and both at the Caribbean and the CONCACAF levels, we have done relatively well," Downswell said.

"When I assumed the responsibility as the national head coach - of course I didn't apply for the job as it was entrusted upon me - and at the time I think the federation was in a precarious position and I think I did a satisfactory work in terms of getting us back," he added.

Though a replacement for Downswell is still under debate, reports circulating in local media outlets suggested that Jamaican-born and former England international John Barnes, Argentine Jose Pekerman and world-renowned Yugoslavian Bora Milutinovic are currently on the short list of coaches that could take up the vacant post.

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