T&T Football Association president David John-Williams is delivering on his administration’s promise to take a bottom- up approach to repair the sport and bring back the crowds to the game.
In an interview with Guardian Media Sports at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Sunday, the local football boss said his association’s Elite Programme initiative, which is being supported financially by the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) is the approach needed to return the sport to the glory days. John-Willimas promised that in five to seven years time the country will be reaping the benefits of this initiative.
The elite football programme was designed to create a pool of national players that will be put into full-time training and used to facilitate national teams in the future. John-Williams said the programme began last year, where his association started scouting talent in the T&T Pro League and the Republic Bank Cup and selected an initial pool of players.
“Now we are doing a competition of all the zones, North zone, Eastern Counties, East zone, Tobago, South zone and Central zone, where we have coaches in those zones selecting those elites players and then we put them into their natural environment so that national coaches can have a look at them and then we will select a final national pool after this competition where the team will go into full time training” John Williams explained.