Waterhouse FC to Audit 2025-26 JPL Campaign After Quarter-Final Exit

Waterhouse FC will carry out a full assessment of their 2025-26 Jamaica Premier League (JPL) campaign before settling the future of the technical staff, club president Donovan White has said, after the Drewsland side were knocked out in the quarter-finals.

The Purple Tigers went out when defending champions Cavalier beat them 2-0 in the second leg at the National Stadium on Wednesday. That result sealed a 4-2 aggregate defeat after the opening leg had finished 2-2.

Argentina-born head coach Javier Ainstein, who took over from Marcell Gayle in January, is said to be out of contract when the season ends. White stressed that no call on the bench will be rushed until the review is finished.

"Like everything else at the end of the season, we will do our review of the previous season," White said. "We will plan our strategy for the next one and we will evaluate all our important and critical elements and we will review our coaching staff and, when the time is right, we will make those announcements."

Since his January appointment, Ainstein has overseen 15 wins in 26 matches and guided Waterhouse to fourth place on 65 points in the regular-season table. White credited the coach and his backroom team for reshaping how the club plays.

"He has done a phenomenal amount of work with organising the team, organising our strategy around how we play, our tactics and the results speak for themselves and it is a matter of record," White said. "In fact, we really believe that we have a good coaching team, so we are going to review everything that has happened this season and, when the time is right, we will make the announcement on what we will do going forward."

Still, White acknowledged the club missed its chief target for the year: a top-three finish that would have opened a path back to Concacaf club football.

"Our aim for the season was to get back to Concacaf and so we wanted to be in the top three," he said. "We didn't quite make it there and, instead, we lost in the quarter-finals. So we just take it back to the drawing board, re-strategise and come back next season."