By Neto Baptiste
Select matches in the under-20 boys’ category of this year’s schools’ football competition could be televised via the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association’s (ABFA) social media platforms.
This is according to coordinator of schools football, Rowan Benjamin, who said the weekly broadcast of at least one match is part of a broader arrangement between the schools programme and the sport’s governing body here.
“We have arranged for matches to be televised on a Friday to utilise the turf, especially in the under-20 category. Hopefully, we should be getting some balls from the ABFA. In terms of the ABFA looking at a youth league on Saturday mornings because it was our intention to see whether we can utilise our under-14s, but there is a little bit of pushback in terms of to play on a Saturday morning because the principals are of the view that it should be played within the school days,” he said.
Benjamin, who said he has had several meetings with the FA’s technical director Sowerby Gomes, revealed that one major understanding is that the ABFA will continue to lend support where it pertains to the training and qualification of coaches within the school system.
“The ABFA would have trained the majority of our coaches, which is a wonderful thing. That is a huge stuff there because otherwise we would probably have to find monies to send away and train our coaches so that is something big and that is something that is always continuous,” he said.
The 2022 schools football competition is slated to kick off on Thursday with a knockout competition in which all schools will be allowed to enter one team in an open category.