Despite reports of a falling-out with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), General Secretary Dennis Chung says there were no issues with Heimir Hallgrimsson, who stepped down as Reggae Boyz head coach on Sunday following their winless Copa America campaign.

The 57-year-old Icelander resigned from his post following the team’s 3-0 defeat to Venezuela at the Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas. The national senior men’s team failed to pick up a point at the tournament after also suffering defeats to Mexico (0-1) and Ecuador (1-3).

Following Sunday’s match, Hallgrimsson, who was appointed in 2022, said that he only wanted to focus on the positives and believes he’s left the programme in better shape than it was before.

There were reports that he was unhappy with the JFF and the JFF was also losing confidence in Hallgrimsson.

However, Chung played down the reports and insisted that the separation was amicable between the two parties.

“In the meeting [on Sunday], the president [Michael Ricketts] said he understood [Hallgrimsson’s] position because no position is permanent. These things happen; people have personal reasons why they’d want to leave, and what we need to look at is continuity. Anybody who is out there talking these things obviously don’t understand how organisations work: people come and people go. Even in football organisations, we see a lot of that, also. Coaches make their decisions and sometimes, coaches are relieved of their duties and sometimes, it’s a dynamic situation,” Chung told the Jamaica Observer.

In his almost two-year tenure, Hallgrimsson won 11 of his 28 games in charge, including semi-final appearances in the Concacaf Gold Cup and Nations League.

While many supporters felt the team was underperforming, Chung believes the coach deserves credit for his accomplishments during his stint.

“He was successful. When you think about it, it’s the first time ever we’ve come third in the Nations League; we made it to the Gold Cup; made it to the Copa America, which is the second biggest [competition] behind the World Cup, and he’s been building a nice team, and we see a pathway. We think we have a much more solid foundation and there’s a lot more camaraderie from the players; the players are a lot more professional,” he said.

Despite his resignation as head coach, Chung says Hallgrimsson will act as an advisor to the programme going forward.

“As he said, he doesn’t want to just be here because he’s getting paid to do something but he’s still very committed and he’s guaranteed us that whenever we need to call him, we can call him. He’ll also come and watch the Boyz play tournaments because it was a very good relationship,” said Chung.

Chung says the demand for the position for the head coach is already high and believes Hallgrimsson’s work will make the transition easier.

“We have started the search. A lot of people have contacted [to] say they’re interested, so there’s no shortage of people who want to coach Jamaica. Jamaica is a big brand,” he said.

“When a coach leaves a team, there’s obviously going to be some changes that happen but we had a very detailed discussion on continuity. He’s a very well-organised person who had a lot of data. He also involved his [technical] team so a lot of the knowledge is here. In the meeting he said, ‘I have a blueprint here, everything I’ve done is documented’ in terms of players we’re going to pursue, players he’s looking at, so what he’s done is very detailed so we’re pretty confident about that,” Chung stated.