Cedella Marley has resigned from her role as the Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) global women’s football ambassador in protest to how the organisation has treated Jamaica‘s women’s team — the Reggae Girlz.
Jamaica’s players are still waiting for their full payment from the historic 2023 World Cup campaign, with Marley criticising the JFF in a statement saying it has responded to complaints by continuing to “malign, mistreat and vilify” the Reggae Girlz. She adds the JFF has done this “by fostering a blatantly false narrative in the media with no regard for the potential impact on the players or the program itself.”
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Marley has long been the champion of the Reggae Girlz and helped get the team back together in 2014 after it was disbanded in 2008. She helped fund their 2019 and 2023 World Cup campaigns through the Bob and Rita Marley Foundation, a charity named after her parents, alongside business partners. Together they invested more than $2.75 million into the growth and development of women’s football in Jamaica. But she has grown increasingly frustrated at the JFF’s treatment of the Reggae Girlz.
The players said after the 2019 World Cup they did not receive their agreed payment for the tournament and started a “No Pay, No Play” social media campaign. Four years on, Jamaica reached the knockout stages of the 2023 World Cup, despite difficulties in the build-up to the tournament with the JFF.
