OTHER NEWS:
NCB support for Boyz
Jamaica’s
Reggae Boyz will travel in style to their historic June 3
friendly against England courtesy of a $5.5 million sponsorship from Jamaica’s
super bank, the National Commercial Bank (NCB).
The announcement was made
recently at a press briefing at the Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) New
Kingston secretariat.
Patrick Hylton, Group
Managing Director at NCB sad that his company was delighted with the
opportunity to work with the JFF in their efforts to develop the nation’s football
programme.
“We saw this has a special
opportunity to partner with the JFF having regards to the fact that Jamaican
have a special ability in sports we didn’t make it to Germany this time but
certainly we are hoping to make it to South Africa (2010 World Cup),” he said.
Hylton believes that the game
will provide the players with invaluable experience and help them to gauge the
requisite level of play for repeated success in the international arena.
He remarked, “Part of the
whole process of getting there (2010 World Cup) will involve ensuring that our
players get to play the best teams in the world, ensuring that they get to play
in conditions of the greatest pressure in the world and ensuring that they get
to play in circumstances similar to which they will need to perform if we are
going to make it consistently to the world cup level and to perform well at
that level.”
NCB’s General Manager for the
International Business Division, Christian Stokes that it is his company’s
intention to both fulfill it’s efforts towards building a better Jamaica on and
off the field.
“We intend firstly to fulfill
our duties as corporate citizens and help to build Jamaica and also to use this
opportunity to build brand Jamaica generally and also to increase our presence
in the UK market,” he said.
The funds will be used to
underwrite some of the cost attached to the team’s preparation before the game
and also to accommodate the team in England. The team will travel to England 10
days before the game with the hope of also facing African powerhouses Ghana on
the 29th of May.
An application before the
English FA for the game to go on is yet to be approved, however JFF President
Crenston Boxhill is confident that the game will be played.
“The promoters have found a venue
(Leicester’s Walker stadium) so I am pretty confident that it will happen, ” he
said.
It was also announced that
Jamaican reggae icon Jimmy Cliff will be delivering the national anthem at the
68,000 capacity Old Trafford stadium (home of Manchester United).
