By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA) Premier Division could see the return of a Future Stars-type team where the country’s top under-17 players could contest the division as a unit.
This is the hope of the body’s technical director Sowerby Gomes, who said the aim is to provide the country’s top young players with the best possible competition as they seek to build players for the senior national team.
“It is something that we have put in writing for the next three to four years of development, but now on this initial set-up, what we have done is that each Premier Division club should have a youth under-19 programme with an aim of filtering these youth players into their Premier Division teams for continuous growth and development. Each First Division club should have an under-17 youth team attached to their particular programme to foster development,” he said.
The Future Stars initiative was started in the mid-to-late 90s by the country’s then technical director, Zoran Vranesh. The team started in the First Division under the premise they would not be promoted to the top flight; that changed in 2000 when the young squad was elevated following pleas by Vranesh.
Gomes believes the time has come for a similar programme, adding that clubs will also be charged with ensuring they have ongoing youth development programmes.
“We don’t want to stagnate the growth of these particular clubs because the clubs are where these youth players come from, and now we are seeing the development of these youth players, we certainly would not want to take them away from these clubs, but we’re seeing the next two to three years, the pathway we are looking at is that the ABFA should have an under-17 national team taking part at our Premier Division level, and not at the level of competing for a championship, but for us to have that particular unit being developed continuously for our national youth programme,” he said.
A former national and Villa Lions defender, Gomes revealed also that upon discussions with the players from the recent under-17 boys’ team that took part in the Concacaf Championship Qualifiers, efforts will be made to filter them into top tier teams for the 2022/23 domestic season.
“We cannot afford them to be playing a lower-level game where the competition is not as high so you would find them stagnating in terms of performance. We had dialogue with them right after the match [final match in the Concacaf qualifiers] and part of our plan is to have them attached to several Premier Division clubs across Antigua and Barbuda. We have done the same with our Under-20s and we want to do the same with our under-17s because these players need to be playing at a particular standard of play where it is competitive, where they can be pushed so that growth could continue to take place within their development,” he said.
Garden Stars FC, Bendals FC, Lion Hill FC, JSC Progressors, Young Lions FC and Green City FC have all been promoted from the Second to the First Division while Empire FC, Sap FC, FC Aston Villa, Tryum FC, Blue Jays FC and Willikies FC will play in the now 16-team Premier Division.
The other teams in the Premier Division are Grenades FC, Greenbay Hoppers FC, Ottos Rangers, Bullets, Swetes FC, Old Road, All Saints United, Liberta Blackhawks, Parham FC and Five Islands FC.
