By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA) will, this month, launch both its under-17 and under-19 boys championships with matches scheduled for the body’s Technical Center on the Sir Sydney Walling Highway.
Newly appointed Technical Development Scheme (TDS) Coordinator with the ABFA and former national coach, Micah Samuel, said a majority of the clubs have indicated their willingness to take part in both age categories.
“We want to kick off this league on Saturday the 11th of May and we’ve been speaking to the [clubs] before. We have a meeting on Friday but the conversation began long before Friday and everybody is very enthusiastic and eagerly looking forward to this. We have 14 teams in the different categories and they are all from the membership of the football association,” he said.
Samuel said the leagues will serve a bigger purpose at the end of the day, allowing a panel to select the best players for further development.
“We will select a total of 25 and Sowerby and I have been discussing this and I wish to up it to maybe 36 or thereabout, but the final decision rests with the technical director. We are going to select, in the 17s category, 25 [players] and also in the 19s category 25 [players] as well, and they are going to go into some training, hoping that we can find another Garry Gonsalves, another Fernando Abraham, Ivor Luke to push up to the senior team,” the official said.
Samuel, himself a former player, also sought to ease the concerns of parents and others by revealing that all players taking part in the competitions will be fully covered by insurance.
“Each team is expected to pay $30 for the registration per player and that is inclusive of insurance and covers up to $15,000 in terms of injuries per player. We have to move away from the setting whereby people would just participate. We need coverage and Sowerby, Neil and myself went to an insurance company that was very corporative with us as it relates to getting that $30 rate,” he said.
Samuel said matches could be played at a second venue but added the body had not yet finalised those arrangements.
It has been over 10 years since the ABFA last held its U17 and U19 competitions.