Horace Reid has hit the ground running as CONCACAF director of football in charge of the 31-member Caribbean.

Well ahead of Wednesday night’s official opening of the office at Courtleigh Corporate Centre in the heart of Kingston’s business district, the Jamaican football administrator was up and about.

“We have started our work already as we have been moving around the region speaking with a number of the associations, looking at what they are doing and talking through the bilaterals to see what projects they are doing and to identify with each territory what their focus is, and that now gives us the opportunity to take a few steps back to see exactly where we need to position our efforts in the short, medium and in the long term,” he told the

Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

Reid, a former Jamaica Football Federation general secretary, has drafted to his team Latoya DaCosta, who will spearhead the competitions plank, and Andre Waugh, who has pinned down the post of development manager.

“Latoya DaCosta will be in charge of the operations involving the CONCACAF competitions and Andre Waugh will assist with the development growth initiatives, grassroots programmes, capacity-building programmes, and so on,” Reid said.

Other staff to fill other key positions are to be added in short order.

“We will also have an administrator responsible for the day-to-day running of the office. Also, we will be bringing on board a referee development officer in a few weeks’ time and there will be other staff members.

“We expect that some staff will be outside of Jamaica as the office will represent the four languages of CONCACAF — Dutch, French, Spanish and English — because you want to have that reach to the entire membership and to ensure that everybody feels that this office provides a service, so when they reach out they don’t feel like they are not a part of the operations,” Reid explained.

The CONCACAF development offices, with another recently commissioned into operation in Guatemala to cover the development needs of the seven-member Central America, have been charged to carry out deep and far reaching programmes aimed at growing the game in the confederation’s more needy subsets.

“First of all the office is here to elevate service level with the 31 members of the region, so it’s getting closer to the development of the sport in each of the territories.

“First we have to recognise how diverse the region is and we are talking with countries with 10 and 11 million people and we have countries with five thousand people and they have different aspirations and they have different objectives,” explained Reid.

The former CONCACAF director of competitions said the development office must not only stand as a monument of football in the region, but must fulfil its fundamental mandate of reaching its membership in every way, form and need in the execution of its pillar of the multi-layered One CONCACAF manifesto.

“The office is here to help grow the sport and to elevate it from its current position in CONCACAF and also on the global stage. We have to focus on a number of things as we have to improve administration, focus on our development initiatives, we have to focus on grassroots programmes, but we have to also ensure that the investment being made by CONCACAF and indeed FIFA is paying returns in efficiency,” trumpets Reid.

“And for the bodies of CONCACAF and FIFA, it will be an encouragement for them to continue that investment as long as we have members who are focused in what it is they want to do and have a very clear vision about it,” he added.

By setting up the development offices, Reid thinks the gesture was not only indicative of addressing a critical need and fulfilling an obligation by the governing body, but it also represents a CONCACAF that is visionary in purpose.

“I think that CONCACAF has demonstrated by this move that it is looking ahead, and that we are so focused on growing the sport and help our members to grow and exercise good governance in how they administer the sport.

“We also want to raise the thinking across the region, so we can see football as an instrument that is going to reach all the young people we are trying to reach, to elevate them to levels that they can be competitive on the world stage,” Reid ended.

— Sean Williams