The fixture still requires formal acceptance from the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) and New Zealand Football board approval but comments from JFF President Captain Horace Burrell overnight suggest they are keen to play the game.
The Wednesday evening match against the world number 52 would provide New Zealand coach Ricki Herbert and his charges with an early benchmark for a potential World Cup playoff against a CONCACAF (North and Central American) nation in November 2013.
New Zealand and Jamaica are both poised to begin their Road to Brazil 2014 campaigns in June, in the second stage of Oceania qualifying and CONCACAF’s third round respectively.
With the top team in Oceania squaring off against the fourth-placed team in CONCACAF home and away in November 2013 for a place at the 2014 World Cup, and Jamaica currently ranked fifth in their confederation, there is a chance the Reggae Boyz and the All Whites could be meeting at the end of next year.
It is also a rare instance of New Zealand filling a FIFA one-day window with a home international – in recent years the All Whites have played in Europe, North America and Asia in the shorter windows – but New Zealand Football Chief Executive Grant McKavanagh believes it is worth testing the home waters.
“A home test against a top 50 football nation from the CONCACAF region should whet the appetite of the sporting public, especially given what may lie ahead with FIFA World Cup qualification in 2013,” McKavanagh says.
“We’ve talked before about bringing the national team home more often and, while we haven’t tended to do it in these one-day windows due to cost and the tyranny of distance, this would be us putting our money where our mouth is and backing football fans to show us it will work.”
“We know there’s an appetite for live football – the Phoenix have been the latest to prove that in Auckland recently – and it will be a big coup if we can get this over the line.”
A venue for the proposed match has not been decided yet, although McKavanagh confirmed the match would be in Auckland due to the timeframe involved in getting players in from all over the world. Venue and ticketing details will be announced if and when the game is finalised.
Story courtesy of New Zealand Football.
For more on New Zealand football go to www.nzfootball.co.nz

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