Salmon to focus on further development, if elected

President of the Greenbay Hoppers Football Club and Vice President of the Antigua & Barbuda Football Association (ABFA), Gwen Salmon, said she will continue to focus on the growth and development of women’s football while improving and expanding the association’s grassroots programme if re-elected during the body’s general election slated for May 22.
Salmon, speaking on OBSERVER Radio’s Good Morning Jojo Sports Show on Tuesday, said women’s football has grown tremendously over the past eight years while the FA’s grassroots programme is being hailed as a success in many quarters.
“We have more young girls under the age of 15 playing football more than before and have also participated in the competitions. We have the ongoing grassroots programme which we are going to be rolling out within the clubs and assisting them in getting that programme off the ground,” she said.
“We have more female coaches. We have seven certified female coaches and three of those coaches have their C licenses and whenever we go to congresses they speak about our competition, the level of the competition and how it’s run and that is also a plus for us, the association,” she added. 
The administrator, who seemingly has the majority backing of the association’s membership, also listed improved club structure and increased emphasis on the development of women administrators as areas she will tackle during her next four-year tenure.
“I think we need more education in terms of the club structure. We have done a lot but we still need to go more in-depth in terms of educating the clubs and that is one of the things we have on the agenda going forward,” Salmon said.
“One of the hurdles we have with the clubs is that enough emphasis is not placed on the development of women’s football so our plan is to ask each club to put forward a female and that female would do a FIFA administrative course and that course would assist them in the development of women’s football,” she added.
Salmon also sought to debunk rumours that she is interested in a proposed deputy general secretary position within the association.
“I have a lot on my plate. I like what I do presently so if I have my overseas appointments that I have to do from time to time and I prefer what I am doing now in terms of assisting in general and with the day to day assisting of the clubs but the assistant general secretary is not a position I am looking forward to,” she said.
The FA’s general election will be held at the Multipurpose Cultural Centre at Perry Bay.
President and former national player, Everton Gonsalves, will face challenges from three other candidates for the association’s top position.