Last November 19 and 20, a team of retired football professionals including World Cup-winning Frank Leboeuf of France, and Jamaica’s Robbie Earle were led by Bernard Stewart, vice-president of ESPN Caribbean & Maritime Media to Jamaica.

The purpose of the trip was to initiate a two-day training programme for coaches and youth footballers that would allow them to develop their overall skills and facilitate a football transformation within the island. This initiative was the Flow/ESPN Football Clinic which was held at the Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium.

The venture was the brainchild of a gathering of corporate executives, including Flow’s vice-president of marketing Sharon Roper and ESPN’s Totlyn Mason, director of business operations and development — both of whom have Jamaican roots and a desire to give back to the country.

With the overwhelming success of last year’s event, main sponsors, telecommunications giant Flow, and the world leaders in sports coverage, ESPN Inc battled financial constraints to ensure a second staging which was held last Friday and Saturday. Totlyn explained: “The plan was to make the project a long-term investment as too often ventures like this lose the drive after a year, so we never gave up on it.”

Back to support the venture was Whole Life Ministries through executive director Andre Virtue and the Western Football Confederation, who organised the technical workings of the event.

The Western Confederation, which constitutes the parishes of Westmoreland, Hanover, St James and Trelawny, had each of these parishes providing 10 coaches and 25 youth footballers, the same format of last year’s clinic. This year the training sessions were conducted by ESPN analysts Robbie Earle, Shaka Hislop and Verron Haynes, as well as Ballaz International directors Paul Alexander and Sherrick Williams.

Shaka Hislop said: “We felt it was very important to have a grassroots programme to develop the game of football. As a region we are progressing slowly, so we are just playing our part.” In direct reference to this year’s venture he added: “They (coaches and children alike) seem to be very excited about the clinic. The reception is much better than last year.”

There was a distinct difference between last year and this year’s running order and that was the introduction of the iSoccer/iFootball development programme. The programme has been around for some time, but was incorporated into the clinic by Robbie Earle following its successful execution in his youth academy in Orange County.

The programme tests players on 16 basic football skills that they participate in within a 5X5 grid before logging the results into the website online. From there, individuals and coaches can track not only their skill level and their progress, but also the statistics of persons around the world who use the programme so as to make comparisons and drive their desire to improve.

Director of sales, Steven Shows, during the demonstration session last Friday, said: “The ‘i’ in iSoccer stands for the individual. So the onus is upon the individual to enhance his skills (through discipline and dedication) by extracting his full potential with the use of the website.”

These sentiments were backed up by Andre Virtue, who in speaking to the philosophy of the project, declared: “We are not coaching a sport, but we are developing a life through sports.”

Earle, the scorer of Jamaica’s first World Cup Finals goal in France in 1998, summed up the two-day event. “The second year is definitely another big step towards helping and supporting the growth of football within the island. The introduction of the iFootball element is key, as it sits perfectly between the practical football sessions and the ability to utilise the internet and technology.”

As the clinic grows from strength to strength each year, these two elements will be of critical importance.

— Devaro Bolton