Last week's disengagement of the Brazilian René Simoes as coach of the Jamaican football team has ignited the expected debate of the wisdom, or lack thereof, of the firing by Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) President Captain Horace Burrell.

Burrell's decision is particularly poignant, given the reputed close friendship between both men and Simoes' history in Jamaica. It was Burrell who, in the middle of the last decade, during his first stint at the head of Jamaican football, first brought Simoes to Jamaica.

Simoes led the team to the World Cup in France, the first English-speaking Caribbean country to reach that far. He became something of a cult figure during those first, heady days. Burrell's reputation burnished as a can-do man.

Insurgency

A succession of coaches and technical directors followed since, but Jamaica's football has been unable to recapture the euphoria of those balmy days.

In this round, after a string of on-the-road defeats - not unusual even during the heady days - Captain Burrell last week fired Simoes, with Jamaica still having three qualifying home games and a slim mathematical chance of being one of the World Cup representatives from the CONCACAF region.

Burrell has been criticised for supposed insensitivity of having executed the decision in a Honduran hotel room late at night, or for the fact that he expected too much in too little time, with a playing talent that was not of the highest quality. Simoes, too, has been accused of poor team selection.

Burrell has cast himself as the consummate professional, willing to take tough decisions, even against a friend. Indeed, he thrives in the caricature of world football leadership, where the coach's job is centred on a revolving door.

Professional

"If this was in a developed country, this would hardly be an issue," Burrell remarked on radio. For, as he said, Simoes is a professional and he knows that "results are what count".

That latter point is true and impacted on Burrell's decision - but in a fundamentally more profound way, we believe, than the captain has let out in his public statements.

Essentially, Burrell, by firing Simoes, and his Brazilian support staff, was cutting his losses, we suggest. Economic ones!

It is likely to have been the captain's calculation that, with or without Simoes, it is unlikely that Jamaica will reach South Africa 2010. Jamaica can get through its remaining home matches, such thinking would go, with a temporary and much cheaper coaching staff. Why could such a move make sense?

Simoes and his assistants were reported to cost the JFF around US$1 million (J$72 million) a year, a bill, whatever the pledges of corporate Jamaica, Captain Burrell's federation would have found difficult to carry while meeting its other obligations.

Jamaica still has three matches at home and a very outside chance of reaching the World Cup finals. The team must give it their best shot.

But it is time that the JFF begin to think really long term, concentrating on putting in place the foundation for sustained football in Jamaica rather than having almost all its focus on a superstructure. Burrell now has the opportunity and time to get this done.