Tony Becca, Contributing Editor

ACCORDING TO the news going the rounds, according to the page one headline of Friday's Gleaner, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) has settled on a technical director, or a coach, for its programme leading up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and, in many respects, that is good news.

It is good news for the simple reason that Jamaicans love football, that the World Cup is one of the two biggest sporting events in the world, that although it is highly unlikely that Jamaica can win it in my lifetime, participation in the World Cup finals is a wonderful achievement - one which can make the name Jamaica echo around the world and that Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic is an outstanding coach.

A Serbian by birth, 'Bora', who has coached five teams that have made it to the World Cup finals, has outstanding credentials and, after their appearance in 1998, if there are any coaches around who can get Jamaica back to the finals, 'Bora' must be one of them.

Cost factor

There are two questions which must be asked, however. One is what cost and two is, who will it cost?

According to what is going the rounds, the cost of 'Bora' will be 3.5 million euros per year or approximately J$266 million per year and a significant part of it, it has been said, will be paid by the Government.

While, according to reports, the cost of 'Bora' is less than what others were asking, in a country where the minimum wage is J$145,600 per year, that is expensive - very expensive.

In other words, without even going into the number of poor Jamaicans the football coach's salary alone would cover, one man, the coach of a football team, will be earning many, many, many more times than what the Prime Minister or a doctor earns in this country - not to mention what a teacher, a nurse and a policeman earns.

Does a football coach deserves so much money? Maybe he does, but not from the Government of a country like Jamaica - not from a country in which poor people are suffering from the lack of proper health care, from the lack of housing, from the lack of running water, from the lack of proper roads and not from a Government which, year after year, during wage negotiations, has to ask its workers - doctors and nurses, teachers and policemen - to hold strain and to settle for a pittance in salary increases.

Economical gain

Unless the Government can tell the people of this country that football is an industry, that the country and by extension the people, the poor people of this country, stand to gain economically from football and from its appearance in the World Cup, then it has no right, no moral right, to spend the people's money, so much of the people's money, on a football coach.

Although sport is important to the psyche of a country - and especially so to a country like Jamaica, and although Jamaicans love to win and to cheer those who win, the responsibility of the Government of this country is to provide facilities, such as playfields and basic equipment, for participation. Its responsibility is not to get involved in competitive sport, certainly not to fund professional sport, and definitely not at the expense of poor Jamaicans who are desperately in need of the basic necessities of life -things like water, food, housing, light and education.

Sport, recreational sport, is important to every society, and sport, professional sport, is good for every country.

The difference between one and the other however, is this: one is the responsibility of the Government and the other is the responsibility of the fraternity of sport lovers, - those people with a passion for sport, and for a particular sport, a passion to develop skills and to reach the mountaintop.

While there are countries whose Government can afford to finance professional sport and to fund the passion of some of its people, there are others who simply cannot - and unfortunately, Jamaica is one of those who cannot.

Does Jamaica need a foreign football coach - and a good one at that?

If Jamaica wants to go to the World Cup finals in another 20 years or so, it does need one - and there can be no question about that. The money to pay him, however, should come, not from the Government but from football itself - from gate receipts, from international assignments, from television rights and from the private sector through donations, sponsorship and advertising.

If that is so, then the JFF, the elected leaders of football in this community, can make all the plans they want for football and for the World Cup - and in their bid to go back to Africa, to hire, at whatever cost, whosoever they wish to hire.