By Neto Baptiste
All matches in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Girls’ Under-14 Challenge Series slated to kick off today, have been moved to the ABFA’s Technical and Training Center located in the Sir Sydney Walling Highway.
This was revealed by Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the CFU, Mickel Brann Challenger, who said complications with flight arrangements for some teams coupled with minor issues with the other two venues at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium and the Johnsons Sports Complex were major factors in the decision.
“We’ve had to make some changes to the venue and to some of the fixtures due to flight arrangements where some teams got bumped, and so we’re moving everything to the ABFA astro turf and the teams would have had that notice last night [Wednesday]. We had the Cayman Islands and they were due to travel abut whatever the issue the airline split the team so they were supposed to play on the 19th so now half of their team arrives on the 19th so it’s normal things, so with the fixture you change it as things come to hand,” she said.
A total of 20 teams will take part in the competition last won by Haiti. Challenger however reminded that the main purpose of the tournament is for development.
“It’s not a competition where you come, run ball, share blows, take blow and go home; it’s a development competition so every person on the team’s rosters must play a minimum of 90 minutes over the course of the competition so everybody gets play. We also have a cadre of 40 female referees but they started their training and workshop on Monday,” the PRO Said.
Matches will be played daily until the end of the tournament August 28 and will be streamed live on at least two platforms including FIFA Plus.
“We have a live streaming crew and so they will live stream the matches with commentary and it’s a crew that does this from out of the Dominican Republic so they are here with a team of seven. Of course, people are free to come to the matches but wherever you are across the region you would go to the CFU platform on Facebook and choose which match you’re going to see,” she said.
Antigua and Barbuda will contest Tier II, Group B of the competition alongside Bermuda, Barbados and Bonaire.
Matches will be played throughout the day with free entrance to the venue.