THE STEERING committee of the Tiger Tanks Under-20 Invitational football tournament has named 15 teams for the inaugural event slated to get underway, once contact sports is given the green light by the government.
The committee is chaired by Colin Wharfe and includes Richard Piper and Richard Clayton. According to Wharfe, the committee paid careful attention to several conditions before settling on the ten teams for Trinidad and five for Tobago.
"We took our time and carefully selected what we think is the best 15 teams at the U-20 level," Wharfe said. "We made sure they were TTFA (TT Football Association) compliant as this was one of the major conditions. Another condition that engaged our attention was whether or not these clubs had good youth programmes."
The tournament, which is the brainchild of the general manager of Tiger Tanks Denis Latiff, will see clubs like W Connection, Caledonia AIA, Central Football Club, Club Sando, Defence Force, Petit Valley/Diego Martin United, Police, Queen's Park, San Juan Jabloteh and Trendsetter Hawks Football Academy playing in Trinidad. They will be split into two groups of five each and play a round-robin first phase. The two winners of the respective groups will then meet to determine the Trinidad champions.
In Tobago, the five teams competing are Bethel United, FC Tobago Phoenix, St. Clair’s Coaching School, Stokely Vale and Youth Stars United. They will play each other twice in the league phase and the team with the most points will be crowned the Tobago winners.
The champions from Trinidad will then clash with the winners from Tobago to determine the national champions.
Teams selected for Tiger Tanks Under-20 –
TRINIDAD: Caledonia AIA, Central FC, Club Sando, Defence Force, Petit Valley/Diego Martin United, Police, Queen's Park, San Juan Jabloteh, Trendsetter Hawks Football Academy, W Connection.
TOBAGO: Bethel United, FC Tobago Phoenix, St. Clair’s Coaching School, Stokely Vale, Youth Stars United.