Friday, August 18, 2006

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

KINGSTON, Jamaica: Former Jamaican coach Carl Brown has accepted a proposal from the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) to fill the position as interim head of coach of the national senior team for the next three months.

Brown, whose last stint with the Reggae Boyz was two years ago before being released, following the team's failure to repeat their successful journey of 1998 when they qualified for the World Cup in France, took up the vacant position after previous coach Wendell Downswell resigned.

"National football is something that I am committed to and I will always answer the call as long as the powers that be believe that I can offer some assistance to the national programme," Brown said on Wednesday. "I would never turn down the national programme."

The Jamaican programme has been on the back foot in recent times, after a series of healthy defeats, including a 5-0 hammering at the hands of Australia and a comprehensive 6-0 drubbing against European giants England, prior to the 2006 World Cup Finals, and Brown's ultimate goal at the moment is to get the country's programme back on winning terms.

"My goal right now is to get them (Reggae Boyz) back in winning mode, that is what the public is asking for," Brown said.

"It is going to be tough, we have two upcoming friendlies and we need to get good results. We also need to get to at least to the final round of the Digicel qualifiers -- that is my immediate aim for football," he added.

Meanwhile Brown, who will be taking up his fifth stint as national coach, has, however, indicated that this is the year he's thinking retirement in order to pay closer attention to other areas of his life.

"It is 23 years as a national coach that I have participated, plus 10 years as a national player between 1970 and 1980 and I believe right now that the time has come for me to pay some attention to other things, but I have never turned down an invitation to serve," Brown said at a press conference at the JFF headquarters in New Kingston, yesterday.

"I really wanted to end (national coaching) this year. I had decided to make an announcement that this would be the final year that I would make myself available for national duties," insisted Brown.

Brown will serve as interim coach as the JFF and the president, Crenston Boxhill, continues to bid for the right coach, who is expected to guide the national team to a World Cup spot in 2010. According Boxhill, the federation will need the proper resources before they can bring forward an international coach into the progromme, but the necessary contract details are still fine tuning.

"The federation will only be able to contract the services of an international coach when we are confident that the resources are not only available but reliably so," Boxhill said. "However, our discussions are continuing and we remain positive and confident that they will succeed.

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