Carenage United, the top team in the Northern Football Association for 2015, faces major challenges if they are to compete at the National Super League and the top-flight T&T Pro League in the future, its manager and owner Angus Eve believes.
The team was thrown out of the Championship Division of the Super League due to lack of funding and because their football ground at Haig Street, did not meet the required standard, as it fell short by a few feet. (It is recommebded by Fifa that football fields must be between 100 yards and 130 yards and the width between 50 and 100 yards.)
Yesterday, Eve who has been instrumental in ensuring the team qualify for the Super League, told the Trinidad Guardian the could club could not raise the finances to fund the team through the tournament.
“This allowed players to seek jobs to take care of their families and eventually break the team up. After a while, we just did not have enough players to field a team for matches” Eve explained.
The team also suffered a major set-back when they were told their home ground did not meet the required standard to compete in the league.
“It is the same ground we have played all our qualification matches on. This was a real let-down for us as we had to play all our matches away which meant that we did not have the opportunity to generate revenue for the season. In fact we had to put out huge amounts of money when we had games but could not generate any in return” Eve said.
Tony Harford, the All Sports Promotion’s owner and managing director said in an immediate response, that his organisation cannot make changes to the rules of the tournament.
“The League’s technical director adjudged that the field at Haig Street was too small and could not be used. We cannot go against him, as we are only running the tournament the way they want us to” Harford said.
He noted “I don’t expect the super league to be held responsible for Carenage’s failure. In fact, they are not the only team to have been affected by this, as just a year ago, La Horquetta suffered a similar fate.” The NFA president has called on clubs being affected by anything in the league to raise it at meetings, saying the Carenage club never once raised the issue at a meeting, although its officials were advised to make a case for it.
According to Harford, Carenage United were told their field was too small and they opted to use the Hasely Crawford Stadium as their home ground. The club is being asked to go back to their Regional Corporation and seek assistance in getting their field expanded.
“It is the same ground we have played all our qualification matches on. This was a real let-down for us as we had to play all our matches away which meant that we did not have the opportunity to generate revenue for the season. In fact we had to put out huge amounts of money when we had games but could not generate any in return” Eve said.
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