3 months ago
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Mount Pleasant's assistant coach, Davion Ferguson, has called for a change in the current Jamaica Premier League (JPL) playoffs format to a straight league, arguing that it would better aid the country's football development and give greater integrity to the league.
Ferguson suggested a merging of the formats in the short term, noting that the winners of the regular season should be crowned league champions and get an automatic place in the Caribbean Cup while the best-placed teams could compete for the playoffs title.
"I like this season. I think the quality of the teams has really improved. The league itself has improved. We are copying a lot of things from other parts of the world in terms of best practices, but my personal position is that we must move to a league.
"We cannot play 39 games in a season and at the end, you still have to come and play another round of playoffs."
He said rewarding the most consistent team over a 39-game period also gives greater integrity to the competition.
"That for me goes a far way in the development of the football and also highlights the integrity of the league.
"You can have teams that are subpar for the better part of 39 games with the intention that they can then come and switch on for a two-week period. That's not good for development."
He also believes that if marketed the right way, sponsors will get even more mileage out of nine months of football instead of the two weeks of euphoria the playoffs offer.
"If they think that the playoffs over a two-week period offers more to sponsors in terms of mileage than over a nine-month period, I think they have a problem.
"If we can market nine months of football to the sponsors as compared to two weeks, I think they (sponsors) will gravitate to that. What we have to do is make these nine months so attractive and the football so competitive that sponsors and people will want to be a part of that.
"That will help overall to grow the league, and the integrity of the league will be more maintained," Ferguson said.
However, he does not believe that the change has to be made overnight and said that a merging of the formats could help make the transition easier.
"We could consider that the number one team automatically gets a spot in Concacaf, and then after that you can have a Jamaica Champions Cup, which could probably have the teams from two to nine going into a quarterfinal round and into a semi-final round and final.
"Then you award the winners the second Caribbean Cup spot, and the team in second spot, which is third, can go into the (Caribbean) Shield.
"There are many ways we can do it and in the process satisfy all sides. But to be consistent over 39 games and there is no reward at the end of it is no good. This is all about the overall development of football in Jamaica and how we can make it better," the Mount Pleasant assistant coach said.
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