Tobago team for Pro League

Yes­ter­day An­tho­ny Moore, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TFA) ad­mit­ted that all stake­hold­ers on the is­lands are in­ter­est­ed in putting forth a To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive team in the league, but it will not be done un­til a prop­er busi­ness mod­el and path­way have been worked out.

A coach has al­ready been iden­ti­fied for the team, Moore said, but stake­hold­ers are con­tem­plat­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate name for the team.

The last To­ba­go team that played in the pro league was To­ba­go Unit­ed FC which was coached by for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller Pe­ter Granville. But the team was dis­solved in 2011, af­ter many un­suc­cess­ful years that saw it fin­ish bot­tom of the ta­ble.

How­ev­er, Moore said he wants the new team to have a phi­los­o­phy and di­rec­tion.

"It must not be like the old To­ba­go teams in the Pro League where shares were bought and it be­comes a mem­ber of the TT Pro League on­ly. Rather it must be opened to all of the To­ba­go peo­ple. Cor­po­rate To­ba­go must be able to pur­chase shares with­in the club, as well as all per­sons on the sis­ter-isle, which would mean that there will be a vest­ed in­ter­est by all to be in­volve and sup­port," Moore ex­plained.

To­ba­go foot­ball stake­hold­ers are now await­ing the de­vel­op­ments from a pro­pos­al from a UE­FA/CON­CA­CAF team re­cent­ly, that could po­ten­tial­ly change the man­age­ment of the sport lo­cal­ly and change the names of the coun­try's top do­mes­tic foot­ball leagues.

For this pur­pose a tri­par­tite com­mit­tee com­pris­ing Ju­lia Bap­tiste (TT Pro League), Kei­th Look Loy (TT Su­per League) and Richard Piper (T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) was cho­sen to ini­ti­ate con­sul­ta­tion and move foot­ball for­ward.

Moore said he and his ex­ec­u­tive await the out­come of this to de­ter­mine their next step. In the mean­time, how­ev­er, is­sues such as rev­enue gen­er­a­tion and trav­el be­tween the is­lands are be­ing worked out.

"For sure we know that mon­ey will be gen­er­at­ed for our home match­es on the is­land, be­cause of the close-knit re­la­tion­ship among the com­mu­ni­ties. And be­cause it will be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive team, peo­ple with a vest­ed in­ter­est will come out, while oth­ers will be out to ral­ly be­hind the top play­ers that ex­ist in To­ba­go," Moore ex­plained fur­ther.

He added, "We are al­so un­sure of the for­mat and struc­ture of the com­pe­ti­tion, but if match­es are be­ing played at the week­end, it will al­so work in our favour. The team's match­es will all be played at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let on­ly. But ba­si­cal­ly, all must be on board on the sis­ter isle."

The Pro League is set to kick off in April, con­sid­er­ing the pace at which key de­ci­sions re­lat­ing to the UE­FA/CON­CA­CAF pro­pos­al, are made.

SOURCE: T&T Guardian