1 year ago
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KINGSTON FOOTBALL Academy (KFA) director and coach, Eric Rademakers, has heaped praises on the inaugural KFC Elite Cup U17 competition as a platform for development for youth football in Jamaica.
The Elite Cup currently stands as a new development competition, played on Saturdays, comprising six of the top youth football programmes in Jamaica.
The teams making up the inaugural season include the KFA, Mount Pleasant Football Academy, Ballaz Academy, Cavalier, Harbour View, and Montego Bay United.
Rademakers said the opening season is being viewed as a test project to hopefully establish a long-term competition.
We’re starting this year and it’s a three-month pilot, let’s say, but we’re really hoping that we make this into a six-month thing for the years to come,” he told The Sunday Gleaner ahead of the competition’s start.
The competition started on February 15 and has undergone two weeks of competitive play.
Rademakers explained the competition was launched through the collective efforts of like-minded persons from the various clubs, to provide a high-level competition for their youth teams.
“We really asked ourselves which clubs actually train three times a week, not just because they have a competition but are actually training all the time. Let’s try to get those kinds of teams together,” the academy director explained.
“Last year, they tried the U17 with the Premier League teams but I think what we should try to aim at is to have a league where our best youth players are challenged at the best level on the best surfaces. All of these clubs should be held to a requirement which comes down to investing in their youth teams.”
He added, “The aim is to really just create a more consistent, high level of youth football for elite players.”
REMOVAL OF TRADITIONAL FIXTURE
A special feature of the Elite Cup will be the removal of the traditional home-and-away fixtures.
Rademakers explained that matches will be held on a weekly basis at selected venues to ensure the players are playing on the best surfaces available.
“It is not necessarily home-and-away matches, it is really about getting the best surfaces. If we can use the JFF Technical Centre every single time, then great. If we can go to the Montego Bay Stadium every single time, then we’ll do that. We just ask ourselves ‘how can we create the most elite environment for these U17 players?’.”
The Elite Cup is aiming to become the stomping ground of the next generation of professional players who can matriculate into the various national programmes.
He pointed at the example set by Mount Pleasant FA, which was home to nine players who competed at the recent Concacaf Men’s U17 Qualifiers; three Jamaicans, three Haitians, two St Lucians, and a Barbadian player.
“If you take a lot of these six clubs, a lot of these players are the ones feeding the U15, the U17 and the U20 youth level. So let’s give them more development, just look at the U17 World Cup Qualifiers and, say, a team like Mount Pleasant.
“All of these players are the ones that are knocking on the senior-level door, are serious about their football, and are investing in themselves. We should let them play on quality fields.”
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