Legends do not die, they keep making things happen even from the great beyond. Reggae icon, Robert Nesta Marley, is on the lips of everyone again following the debut of Jamaica’s senior female national team at the France 2019 World Women’s Championships.
The Reggae Girlz became the first from the Caribbean region to qualify for the Women’s World Cup. It was made possible largely due to the efforts of Cedella Marley, the first of the legend’s 10 children. She met a team that was treated like junk by the Jamaican Football Federation [JFF] and gave them more hope than the entire country could.
Cedella’s intervention was ignited by her son, Skip, who on a certain day in Miami, United States, came home with what turned out to be more than a piece of paper. That was enough to push his mother into action.
She said; “My son, Skip, just came back from school one day with a flyer in his rucksack. And it was an appeal to support the Reggae Girlz. I started making calls the next morning to the federation, just asking what this was about. And when they started to talk to me, I realized it was a bigger problem than donating 10 dollars or 15 dollars.”
Cedella knew she had to do something for the girls. The daughter of Bob Marley chose not to sit aside and look. She remembered her father’s redemption song. She neither shot the JFF Sheriff nor the deputy. The Reggae Girls could be loved and so the exodus of Jamaican girls from world soccer was stemmed. Thus began a new movement of people around her that drew a lot of support.
Cedella used her position as Acting Director of the Bob Marley Foundation to raise money for the team. Her connections as singer, actress, author, dancer, fashion designer helped in so many ways. It took a while but at the end, qualification from the CONCACAF group came right in the United States over Panama, thanks to penalty shoot -out.
And in the Reggae Girls squad, there are two Nigerian names. Olufolashade Danielle Ayomide Adamolekun, was born in Austin Texas, to a Nigerian father, Lanre and a Jamaican mother, Michelle. She could have played for the United States, or Nigeria. The 18-year-old settled for Jamaica. Chinyelu Bessum Asher, has a Jamaican dad and Cameroonian mom. Probably, she has Igbo blood from either of the parents.
Cedella’s intervention meant Sade and her team mates got a coach, Hue Menzies, for nothing. The man is not paid by JFF and had to sacrifice so much to keep the team going. It was difficult to put them together. They did not even have sports bra, training facilities were not just up to standard but the girls showed more determination.
“I never wanted to see a young girl who really wants to achieve her dream and just because of her gender, she’s told ‘no thanks, find something else to do’. That didn’t sit well with me,” Marley’s daughter told Tom Carry of the UK Telegraph.
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That was the Bob Marley spirit. As CEO of her father’s record label, Tuff Gong, Cedella had to push. The idea of treating the Reggae Girls disdainfully tore her insides out.
“You have to remember, my dad for a long time was looked down upon as this downtown ghetto boy who smokes weed and has dreadlocks. That’s what I was told in high school, that’s my father. That’s who he is,” she explained.
With her help and that of Menzies, some of the girls got places in the United States. And those already living there and eligible to play for Jamaica teamed up with their compatriots to make training easier. The JFF did not have to give excuses about poor funds for flight tickets and training camps.
Having played her part, Cedella did not spare the JFF. “If the federation wants to play muddy, I got the voodoo for them bitches. We were talking about a broom and sweeping, and I said, no. We need a vacuum for this shit because it’s so dirty, so muddy.”
She was in the position to challenge the JFF because she had been involved in the past. Her company designed the official uniform of the Jamaican contingent to the London 2012 Olympic Games. She was not a novice after all, even if she didn’t know much about the Reggae Girls. Cedella was a supporter of the men’s senior team, Reggae Boyz who debuted at the France’98 World Cup.
Her brothers, Stephen and Ziggy, also played soccer with their father anytime he was not in the studio. She is convinced that Bob Marley would have been a soccer star if he did not choose music.
Yes, indeed. Bob Marley loved soccer. “Football is part of I. When I play the world wakes up around me,” the Reggae king once said. We all remember how Bob juggled the ball at the White House when he visited President Gerald Ford in the mid 1970s.
Bob Marley had so many powerful women behind him: Mother, Cedella Booker and wife, Rita Marley. Now daughter, Cedella, keeps the flag flying and with son, Skip, by her side, is trying to recreate female soccer in Jamaica. The Reggae Girlz lost all three matches in France but gained global attention.