Local tackle football association withdraws from hosting of World Cup
The National Tackle Football Association (NTFA) has withdrawn its bid to host the International Federation Of American Football (IFAF) World Championships in August next year, citing a lack of support from the Government and private sector.
It is understood that the organisers managed to secure support from international sponsors, but it was the local aspsect of the planning that fell short of what was expected.
Jamaica were favourites to host the championships between August 9 and 15, 2021, and were expected to bring in at least 2,500 visitors for the games that were scheduled to be held at the Catherine Hall Stadium and the Trelawny Stadium and congress meeting at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.
In a letter to the NTFA board and administrators from chairman
Jerome Harriot, who was spearheading the bid, he said, “I have withdrawn the bid to host the 2021 IFAF Flag Football World Championships.”
“During this process we had secured a tremendous amount of commitments from corporate entities, mostly internationally, that pledged to take part in the making of history for Jamaica. The IFAF fully expected the 2021 IFAF Flag Football World Championships to be hosted in Jamaica. Unfortunately, the NTFA has not been able to secure key aspects of Jamaica’s private and public sectors in time to finalise the proposal,” Harriot wrote.
The letter said they chose to continue their efforts to develop the fledgling league that was played in high schools.
“The NTFA had to measure the opportunity of hosting such an international event versus the continuing development of the sport in Jamaica through the Gridiron programmes. We thought it more essential to keep our current focus on the accomplishments we have attained thus far and expand the foundation we have successfully implemented these past few years.”
Earlier this year, Harriot, the founder/director of NTFA, told the Jamaica Observer he was contacted by Andy Fuller, IFAF managing director about the possibilty of hosting the event that could see upwards of 630 participants and an estimated 2,500 visitors to the island for the duration of the championships.
Flag football is the scaled down, non-contact version of the American version of football and is played in 71 countries with its headquarters in France.
The United States are the defending champions, winning the 2015 competition that was held in Canton, Ohio, after Stockholm, Sweden, failed to get sufficient sponsorship.
The Americans had also won in 2007 in Kawasaki, Japan, and 2011 in Austria, while Japan had won the other two, in Italy in 1999 and Germany in 2003.