Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz are charting a historic fairy tale run at the 2023 Women’s World Cup now in progress as they tackle Colombia in the knockout stages on Tuesday (August 8)

Thus, far it has been a World Cup where traditionally smaller teams have joined the party to upset their bigger rivals; Nigeria and Colombia have been enthralled while Morocco and the Philippines have recorded historic results. The Jamaica have also been remarkable in drawing 0-0 with France and picking up their historic first World Cup win over Panama and holding Brazil to a draw.

On the eve of their key Group F match against Brazil, the Reggae Girlz and their management team called for more to be done for women’s football and pushed back at not being given the recognition it deserves.

Scathing remarks from Reggae Girls manager

Reggae Girlz manager Lorne Donaldson was scathing in his remarks to ESPN as he delivered a message for the footballing world declaring, “everyone is looking at these smaller countries… Governments and everybody, cut the bull-crap, it’s time to step up and support women’s football.”

The Reggae Girlz have been one of the great stories of this tournament with a good chance of making it into the knock round at the expense of one of the superpowers of Brazil or France.

This feat is coming just six weeks after they issued a collective statement expressing their frustration at being let down by their federation, a familiar story echoed by Nigeria and South Africa among others. “The message that we want to send has always been the same, that women’s football is legitimate,” centre-back Allyson Swaby said after beating Panama.

Continuing, Swaby remarked, “we’re here to compete. This is our livelihood. It’s the thing that brings us joy, it’s our passion. That’s really the message, this is the ultimate honour for us and we’re also going to be fighting and pushing to be treated like we feel that we should.”