Central FC to adopt Crown Trace community

The move is in keep­ing with a man­date by the com­mis­sion formed to guide the lo­cal foot­ball to the UE­FA/FI­FA-pro­posed T-League for­mat this year and there­by take club foot­ball back to the com­mu­ni­ty base.

Brent San­cho, own­er and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the club told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that his club has been hav­ing on­go­ing talks with mem­bers of the Crown Trace com­mu­ni­ty, and so far the talks have been very fruit­ful.

He said yes­ter­day, "We start­ed ini­tial­ly in the Cal­i­for­nia area in Cou­va and have now moved to Crown Trace in Ch­agua­nas, where we have been li­ais­ing with the clubs there to find out what can be done in a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort. I think our move there will be a good one, as many play­ers from that area will be tak­en in­to our fold and get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play pro­fes­sion­al­ly. We will al­so seek ways of de­vel­op­ing the area and the young foot­ballers who ex­ist in it."

The Cen­tral FC boss did not say what the new name of his club will be but gave the as­sur­ance it will suit the new com­mu­ni­ty they will be rep­re­sent­ing.

Cen­tral FC and nine oth­er clubs- W Con­nec­tion, the 2018 League win­ners, North East Stars, Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers, Po­lice, Cen­tral FC, Point Fortin Civic, Club San­do, De­fence Force, Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed and San Juan Jabloteh, will play in Tier 1 of the T-League sched­uled to be­gin by mid Au­gust to ear­ly Sep­tem­ber.

UE­FA, FI­FA and the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T will pro­vide fund­ing for the T-League, which will fea­ture a Tier 1 and a Tier 2 for the next three years. There­after, how­ev­er, the clubs will be asked to stand on its own. San­cho said the clubs are all aware of what is need­ed from them and are there­fore seek­ing help from the gov­ern­ment, to have com­mu­ni­ty grounds blocked around so that clubs can ben­e­fit from gate re­ceipts.

In ad­di­tion, clubs are al­so man­dat­ed to mar­ket and pro­mote their prod­uct (foot­ball) to in­crease their earn­ings.

Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed has al­ready made it clear they will use the Mor­vant Recre­ation Ground, while both and the De­fence Force will oc­cu­py the St James Bar­racks and the De­fence Force Head­quar­ters grounds in Ch­aguara­mas re­spec­tive­ly. The oth­er clubs will be charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of se­cur­ing their own fa­cil­i­ties.

Mean­while, the po­si­tions of mar­ket­ing, li­cens­ing, and com­pe­ti­tion and tour­na­ment per­son­nel will be filled with­in the next week, San­cho said. The po­si­tions are crit­i­cal to the run­ning and start of the T-League and ac­cord­ing to San­cho, all in­ter­views for them have been com­plet­ed. He said the com­mis­sion is now in the process of de­ter­min­ing the best choic­es for the spots.

SOURCE: T&T Guardian