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Veteran football coach and broadcaster Neville Bell has reflected on the extraordinary national unity he remembers surrounding Jamaica’s historic qualification for the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
Speaking on the No NDA Podcast, Bell recalled the atmosphere in Jamaica during the qualification campaign and the impact football appeared to have across the country.
Bell said Jamaica played 10 home matches during the campaign without losing and without conceding a goal.
He further recalled that nine of those match days reportedly recorded no murders in Jamaica, while he said the country went three days without a murder around the match in which Jamaica secured qualification.
Bell presented the recollection as an example of the wider social influence he believes sport, and football in particular, can have on Jamaican society.
He also recalled travelling to France with Jamaica’s Under-20 setup during the year of the World Cup and seeing a Jamaica shirt displayed in a Paris sports store alongside shirts representing established football powers including Brazil and Argentina.
Bell said the sight was deeply significant to him because it demonstrated how Jamaica’s qualification had elevated the country’s international football profile.
He purchased the Jamaica shirt but said he later gave it to a Jamaican woman he encountered outside the store, recalling her emotional reaction to receiving it.
