Youth football organiser Gregory Jones is pleased with how a recent meeting between Corporate Area football academies and the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) went.

KSAFA called a meeting with these academies to discuss the need for them all to be certified because of what it described in a recent press release as “the mushrooming of non-affiliated entities claiming to be football academies”.

A number of academies questioned the intention of the document as they believed that KSAFA was looking for a way to protect its clubs from academies, which have more resources, poaching recruits from them.

But Jones, of ProNation Sports and Emmanuel Christian Academy, says there was positivity after a meeting between the academies and KSAFA on Monday night to discuss a way forward where both they and clubs could co-exist.

“The council [KSAFA] met with some of the academies and it was a fairly good meeting, nothing combative or anything like that,” Jones told the Jamaica Observer. “We came up with some things that we needed to do to go forward.”

Jones says KSAFA recommended that the academies form an association so that they could come up with a strategic plan to ensure all its members are certified.

“Where the association will be affiliated is where we need to decide – whether it’s gonna be a national thing or a KSAFA thing,” Jones said. “We have to put the framework in place to establish an academies’ association and then we look at the steps for licensing of all the academies.

“We’re gonna meet as a group and put that together because KSAFA really doesn’t have anything in place to license the academies. There’s no document, per se, to do that. So, we have to come up with that and then they’re gonna vet it and see if we can work with it.

“It’s promising and productive. Hopefully, everyone sticks to their word and we should have some harmony.”

In spite of the previously held belief, both KSAFA President Mark Bennett and its First Vice-President Carvel Stewart told the Observer that they believe academies and clubs can co-exist and be affiliated with each other. KSAFA says the reason for urging licensing is to ensure that all persons representing these academies are put through a background check and be made to present a police record as they will be working with children.

Jones says that some academies are now touring the United States of America for summer tournaments and the meeting among them all will take place when the ones travelling have returned to the island.