KINGSTON, Ja­maica – The race to be­come the next head coach of the Ja­maica na­tion­al se­nior men’s foot­ball team is heat­ing up, with four can­di­dates al­ready throw­ing their hats in­to the ring, in­clud­ing two for­mer na­tion­al play­ers, Michael John­son and Dar­ren Moore.

John­son, a for­mer cen­tral de­fend­er who earned 13 caps for Ja­maica, brings both in­ter­na­tion­al play­ing and man­age­r­i­al ex­pe­ri­ence to the ta­ble.

He rep­re­sent­ed the Reg­gae Boyz at the 2000 and 2003 Con­ca­caf Gold Cups and lat­er served as head coach of the Guyana na­tion­al team from 2018 to 2019.

Moore, who won two caps for Ja­maica be­tween 1999 and 2000, is al­so no stranger to the dugout.

The for­mer de­fend­er served as care­tak­er man­ag­er for West Bromwich Al­bion dur­ing their time in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League.

The oth­er two ap­pli­cants are Rudolph Speid and Miguel Co­ley, both of whom have al­ready stood in in­ter­im roles dur­ing Ja­maica’s In­ter-Con­fed­er­a­tion World Cup play­offs against New Cale­do­nia and the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go.

While the Ja­maica Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (JFF) con­tin­ues its search for a long-term head coach, an emer­gency board meet­ing has been called for Tues­day at the JFF of­fices.

The meet­ing will con­sid­er a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Tech­ni­cal Com­mit­tee to ap­point Speid as head coach at least through the end of June.

The Tech­ni­cal Com­mit­tee has re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al time from the JFF Board to al­low more ap­pli­cants to ex­press in­ter­est, mean­ing a per­ma­nent ap­point­ment is un­like­ly un­til clos­er to the sum­mer.

CMC