The “Big Four” Finals of the Trinidad and Tobago Women’s League Football (WOLF) welcomed a new sponsor on Monday in TTFF Women’s Technical Director Even Pellerud.
The Norwegian-born coach who led this country’s Under 17 Women’s Team at the 2010 FIFA Under 17 Women’s World Cup, offered to support the tournament after finding out that the League organizers were considering calling off the tournament due to a lack funding.
The two days of action will take place on August 2nd and 4th at a venue to be announced. The fixtures will also be released shortly by the league organizers.
Currently the league has 420 registered Women players among the 19 teams. Real Dimension were crowned the FA champions with a win over Trincity Nationals at the Hasely Crawford Stadium last Thursday and the league has drawn considerable interest across the country. This was enough to convince Pellerud to step in.
“A League for women’s football is vitally important to the development of the game in any country and particularly here in Trinidad and Tobago,” Pellerud told TTFF Media.
“It has been tried before and was okay but not great. But this year the people behind WOLF have been doing a good job. You can see another level of play.
A lot of teams are coming out and on time, the refereeing has been good and the organization as well. This is all due to the leadership behind it. I was starting to look forward to the Big Four for a chance to see the best players in the country and then I suddenly heard it would be cancelled and I was disappointed.
“This prompted me to step in and help out… put some cash into it so that we have this final tournament. I asked Jinelle (James) and Sharon (Obrien) how much they were lacking and they gave me a figure and I was able to make the contribution,” Pellerud added.
TTFF marketing manager Anthony Harford disclosed last week that Pellerud was among the TTFF coaches who have gone unpaid for some time. But this did not deter the ex-Canada coach from contributing.
“It’s crucial now especially with the problems and the long term financial issues we have in the TTFF and now we have this League stepping up and filling the gap for the young girls and the senior players. We had such a good system in place before which suddenly was collapsing before us and thankfully this League came into play to help us save a generation of women footballers in this country. That in itself was sufficient reason to offer some support,” he added.
The winners of the Big Four will take home $4,000, runners up $2,000, third place $1,000 and fourth place $1000. Other tournament related costs will also be met by Pellerud.
President of the Women’s League Sharon O’Brien expressed gratitude on behalf of the League to Pellerud for his generous offering and promised to see the season finish on a high with the Big Four challenge.