ABFA’s Salmon re-appointed

0
354
- Advertisement -

Vice-President of the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA), Gwen Salmon has been retained as a member of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Committee that will “monitor, review and supervise policies that are focused on women’s football in the region.”
Salmon was first installed on the committee three years ago. She is joined by committee chair, Jeaninne Wong-Loi Sing of Bonaire, Mildred Wever (Aruba), Jesús Pereira León (Cuba), Danaë Daal (Curaçao), Armide Horth (French Guyana), Ramona Otway (Grenada) Monique Andre (Haiti) and Ana Rabell (Puerto Rico).
Expressing gladness over being back on the committee, Salmon said there are a number of issues surrounding women’s football that needs urgent attention.
The starting of leagues in some CFU countries is high on that list.
“There are not a lot of countries that have leagues or have grassroots programmes for women in the Caribbean so we are hoping that this time around we can get to each and every member of the CFU and we can find out who is in charge of the programmes or in charge of the leagues, and if there is somewhere we can start putting those plans that we have and working along with them so we can see women’s football really become vibrant in the Caribbean,” she said. 
The committee, Salmon added, will not only focus on the involvement of the game on the pitch but in areas that could also be financially viable to those willing to get involved.
“We have to look at the development of the senior players when they have finished playing the game and you have to look at bringing more female coaches within the national teams and seeing more female coaches emerging,” she said.
“We need to have more female referees coming out of the Caribbean because majority of them usually comes out of Trinidad and Jamaica but we are not seeing the other countries retaining female referees on the list like that,” the ABFA vice-president said. 
Asked to identify one of the committee’s more significant accomplishments over the past three years, Salmon pointed to being able to better structure the way female competitions are played within the CFU.
“We looked at the logistics and the movement where, if a team is in a certain tier and you’re playing against a team that is in a far region, how best to look at the expenses for the member association in terms of the traveling and how we group the teams in terms of their rankings and stuff like that. The first couple of meetings that we had were very fruitful,” she said.
The committee is installed for a period of three years (2017-2020) and will convene for the first time in April 2018.

- Advertisement -