Reign­ing T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) Pre­mier League cham­pi­ons, De­fence Force will kick off the de­fence of their knock­out ti­tle, the First Cit­i­zens Knock­out Cup in the round-of-16 on April 27 against the win­ners of the first-round clash be­tween Cunu­pia Ea­gles of Tier II, and Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers.

This was de­ter­mined dur­ing the draw that in­volved all 11 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams in the TTFA Tier I and 15 clubs in Tier II when the draw was con­duct­ed by Amiel Mo­hammed, gen­er­al se­cre­tray of the TTFA and De­vorn Jorsling, a for­mer na­tion­al and De­fence Force strik­er, and cur­rent head coach of Tier II club Harlem Strik­ers at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Tues­day.

In his ad­dress, Mo­hammed said he was pleased to wel­come First Cit­i­zens back in­to the top lev­els of lo­cal foot­ball as a ma­jor spon­sor to the sum of $200,000 with $150,000 go­ing to­wards the prize mon­ey for the fi­nal­ists of the com­pe­ti­tion.

For the draw, the top three teams on the stand­ings in both the Tier I and Tier II Di­vi­sions as of Mon­day, April 8, 2024, were giv­en byes in­to the round-of-16 with Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC, AC Port-of-Spain, and De­fence Force the ben­e­fi­cia­ries in Tier I, and the trio of Guaya Unit­ed, MIC Mau­ra Re­Unit­ed and Harlem Strik­ers, from Tier II.

Among the mouth-wa­ter­ing round-of-32 match-ups set for April 20 are a meet­ing be­tween Tier II ri­vals, De­fence Force and Po­lice FC, Cale­do­nia AIA (Tier I) against Tier II’s Queen’s Park Crick­et Club, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T Pa­tri­ots ver­sus Prison Ser­vice FC.

Last sea­son, De­fence Force com­plet­ed the dou­ble in the T&TPFL when they won the Knock­out Cup, af­ter bat­tling past Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers in a hot­ly-con­test­ed fi­nal 5-3 at the Diego Mar­tin Sports Com­plex, Diego Mar­tin. The quar­ter­fi­nals are card­ed for May 4 and 5 while the dates for the semi­fi­nals and fi­nal are yet to be fi­nalised.

First Cit­i­zens Knock­out Cup

April 20

Round-of-32

#1 - De­fence Force FC (Tier II) vs Po­lice FC (Tier II)

#2 - Cunu­pia Ea­gles (Tier II) vs La Hor­quet­ta Rangers

#3 - Cale­do­nia AIA vs QPCC FC

#4 - Cunu­pia Ea­gles (Tier I) vs 1976 FC Phoenix

#5 - Club San­do (Tier II) vs Cen­tral FC

#6 - UTT Pa­tri­ots vs Prison Ser­vice FC

#7 - San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants vs Bethel FC

#8 - Point Fortin Civic vs Cen­tral Soc­cer World

#9 - Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Utd vs Misc. Laven­tille Utd

#10 - Club San­do (Tier I) vs RSSR FC

Round-of-16

April 27

De­fence Force (Tier I) vs Cunu­pia Ea­gles (Tier II)/La Hor­quet­ta Rangers win­ner

Club San­do (Tier I)/RSSR FC win­ner vs Po­lice FC (Tier 1)

San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants/Bethel FC win­ner vs Harlem Strik­ers

Cunu­pia Ea­gles (Tier I)/1976 FC Phoenix win­ner vs Cale­do­nia AIA/QPCC FC win­ner

AC Port-of-Spain vs De­fence Force FC (Tier II)/Po­lice FC (Tier II) win­ner

Guaya Unit­ed vs Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed

Point Fortin Civic/Cen­tral Soc­cer World win­ner vs UTT Pa­tri­ots/Prison Ser­vice FC win­ner

Quar­ter­fi­nals: May 4 and 5

Semi­fi­nals and Fi­nal: Dates to be de­ter­mined