Jamaican FA leaves history by crashing Reggae Girlz in Houston

July 26: Days after the Jamaican women's team created Caribbean soccer history with back-to-back World Cup qualifiers, the team and its baggage were stranded in Houston, Texas, as they returned from Monterrey, Mexico.

The team was stuck because there was not enough money to clear their luggage. As a result, they would have missed their connecting flight to Miami. Some members of the team and staff who wanted to travel with their luggage paid for the customs clearance of their luggage out of their own pocket.

Two staff members would then stay behind with the luggage, making arrangements to travel the following day.

This is the second time in two months that a full Jamaican national team has been stranded in a foreign country while on international duty. In June, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) left its men's team stranded in Suriname after a Concacaf Nation's League match. The team was supposed to share a charter jet with Suriname for the return match a few days later in Jamaica, but the JFF failed to pay its share of the cost.

Controversial Football Association of Jamaica chairman Michael Ricketts has remained silent on the situation of Reggae Girlz - a team he has refused to fully fund with a full training program and whose next steps towards preparations for the 2023 World Cup are unclear, with coach Lorne Donaldson not confirming whether he would continue in the role, having only stepped in in June.

The debacle is another disastrous outcome of Ricketts' tenure as JFF president. The JFF receives more than $500,000 a year from FIFA to run its business, including women's football, although that money is unclear according to Jamaican insiders.

Ricketts wasn't even in Monterrey to watch his national team become the first Caribbean men's or women's team to play in two World Cups. Only four Caribbean men's teams have qualified for a World Cup final: Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The Reggae Girlz did it twice.

In a press release, the JFF apologized "unreservedly to members of the senior women's soccer team and technical staff who faced embarrassing challenges regarding the movement of baggage on July 19 as they were returning home".

But it wasn't until team captain and one of the tournament's star players, Khadija Shaw, posted on the Instagram page saying, "Less than 24 hours after completing a successful tournament and qualifying for back-to-back World Cups, only to arrive at the airport to be stuck with 24 bags and no funds to pay for them. JFF how do we get in?"

The JFF said: "Quite frankly, after their historic achievement in qualifying for back-to-back FIFA World Cup tournaments, this experience should not have happened.

"We recognize that there have been recurring problems with the travel of our national teams and we are committed to doing everything in our power and within our control to correct these incidents.

“Once again our deepest regrets, including those football fans who have expressed their concerns.”

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