Working party chairman Steve Meiklejohn told the near-70 audience, who attended last night’s information gathering forum at Fort Regent, that they were hoping to meet with football’s governing body in the next month or so – after they had first discussed matters with officials at the Football Association.
Last night’s lively meeting covered much familar ground, but the general feeling was that Jersey should, once again, look at the FIFA UEFA route, even if it were a second-tier competition played by smaller nations.
Other points of general consensus were for the Island’s main footballing bodies, the Jersey Football Association and the Coca-Cola Combination, to look again at amalgamation and that there should be an investigation into appointing a full-time paid chief executive to administer the sport.
Meiklejohn chaired the meeting along with working party members Derek de la Haye, Phil Austin, JFA president Charlie Tostevin and Combination president Tim Darwin.
The debate began with a request for comments on which league, if any, the Island team ought to play in.
It was suggested that the South West Counties championship, in which Jersey currently compete, is not perceived as a meaningful competition by the Island’s supporters.
The consensus was that Jersey had wasted a golden opportunity, seven years earlier, in not pushing for UEFA membership in the same way that the Faroe Islands had.
‘Times have moved on since then,’ said Phil Austin, adding that Jersey is not seen as an independent country, although it was pointed out that the Faroes are a protectorate of Denmark in the same way that Jersey is a dependent of England.
Several speakers urged that Jersey look again at UEFA or FIFA competition, and the chairman said that other, smaller nations, had hosted their own feeder tournament, for example the Caribbean Cup, which had seen the winning sides being considered for inclusion in the World Cup.
Iain Mackenzie, organiser of the annual professional under-21 tournament, said: ‘Jersey has to look further than the Muratti.
It needs to be big and brave enough to look much further ahead.’ No-one favoured an Island side playing in an English or French league, mainly because of the number of games and the cost.
Tim Darwin said: ‘There aren’t enough weekends in the year for the number of local games we play, as it is.’ In terms of club football, Jersey Scottish’s Pat Brennan said that players were not paying as much as they should be doing, for the facilities, and the games, over the season.
He suggested the JFA take a registration fee of between £100 and £150 from junior and senior players at the start of the season.
That money could then be given back to the clubs to help defray running costs.
As for the relationship between the JFA and the Combination, league president Darwin was pressed as to why the clubs had unanimously rejected the merging together of the JFA and the Combination, which would mean just one ruling body; the current JFA to look after the overall administration and the Combination to look after competition.
Following a show of hands, the working party were asked to look again at how the clubs and the administrators could be brought together, as one.
Former under-18 Island manager, Jon Welsh, then brought up the problem of the better junior players not being tested enough, because there weren’t enough good players to play against them; while it was generally agreed the JFA were right to employ a Football Development Officer, who fully justified his pay.
Although there was discussion about which other paid officials the JFA ought to appoint, including the post of a marketing manager, it was generally agreed that the next paid official ought to be a full-time chief executive.
