By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA) domestic competition will kick-off later this month with the body’s top tier competition, the Premier Division, set to start on November 25 with 16 teams.
This will be followed by the First Division competition on November 28 and the Second Division on November 29.
Long standing ABFA Vice President, Gwen Salmon, said a decision was taken to start the domestic programme much later down in the year given that two major national teams have been engaged in international competitions.
“Both the senior men and women national teams are currently engaged in the Nations League and the Concacaf Road to Gold Cup so we had to make sure the teams completed at least 90 percent of their home games to ensure we are not playing our national leagues and have to break every time the teams are playing at home, so in order to ensure that we have the league running smoothly, we waited until 90 percent of the home matches are completed,” she said.
Salmon went on to explain that following the 22023/24 instalment of the programme, the number of teams in the top tier will be reduced and that a further reduction could be possible pending further review with the FA’s executive.
“Four teams will be demoted to the First Division and we will have two teams being promoted to the premier league, and for the 2024/25 football season you will see 14 teams competing for the premier league championships and you will see 14 teams also competing for the First Division championship,” Salmon said.
“We made a decision to take down [relegate] four teams this year due to the fact that when we had 16 teams in the premier league last year, and as it came to the end, teams were not able to field full teams, so we are going to work with 14 teams and then we will evaluate the competition and make a decision in terms of the next steps we take,” the VP added.
The Grenades FC won the 2022/23 Premier Division title after amassing 48 points. It was their first top tier title in the domestic programme.
