‘One woman, all play’ Jamaica ride Marley wave to World Cup
FRISCO,TEXAS: Bob Marley has been the best advertisement for Jamaica. And his oldest daughter, Cedella Marley, has proved the ‘lead singer’ in reviving the Jamaican women’s football team and inspiring them to qualify for next year’s World Cup in France.
Jamaica edged out Panama in a tense third-place play-off in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament, winning a penalty shoot-out 4-2 after a 2-all deadlock in Frisco, Texas on Wednesday night.
The Reggae Girlz became the first Caribbean team to earn a spot in the World Cup, emulating their male counterparts who had caught the imagination of sports lovers by qualifying for the 1998 World Cup, also in France.
However, what was hailed by the Jamaican media as “almost super-human” after Dominique Bond-flasza’s winning penalty would not have happened but for Marley, daughter of the reggae legend, reaching out from art to sport.
In 2000, the Jamaican Football Federation (JFF) had cut funding and disbanded the women’s team. However, in 2014 Marley – who had designed Jamaica’s kit for the 2012 London Olympics – adopted the team as its ambassador and began reviving the fortunes of the Reggae Girlz. The Alacran Foundation also provided funding to back the World Cup campaign.
Marley, 51, was a singer in the family band ‘Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers’, and is now CEO of her late father’s record label as well as a fashion designer. “Daddy would probably not be surprised, when I put my foot into something stuff happens. He’d be like, ‘that’s my girl’,” Marley was quoted as saying by BBC.