AMID FEARS of potential heavy losses faced by the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) when it hosts the final stage of the Digicel Caribbean Championships in December, the event's title sponsor has vowed to increase its efforts as far as marketing and promotion of the competition is concerned.

Jamaica, which will host groups I and J of the championships, will have a total of seven teams for 16 matches over two weeks. The group automatically includes defending champions Haiti.

However, the last hosting of the event in 2006 was not a happy outing for the country. Not only were the Reggae Boyz, then defending champions, dumped out of the competition following a shock loss to St. Vincent and the Grenadines but, according to the budget of then Crenston Boxhill-led JFF administration, the organisation ended the tournament $2.5 million in the red.

"There is a set amount of money that we give to each country to help with the staging of a group and for the final it is a bit more," Kieran Foley, head of sponsorship for the Digicel Group explained.

"However what we will also do is to beef up our marketing and promotion of the event. Our intention is to do what we were able to do in Trinidad and that is get about 18,000 people per game," Foley said.