WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

It will be a blend of gospel, so­ca and tas­sa when the fi­nal of the Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CFA) FA Cup takes place at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va Oc­to­ber 14.

Two top teams, Com­padres FC, which was for­mer­ly Gi­ants FC but had to change its name to gain com­pli­ance from the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, Con­ca­caf and the world gov­ern­ing body for the sport - FI­FA, will clash with cen­tral gi­ants Harlem Strik­ers from 6pm for the Nal Ram­s­ingh's Cup, brag­ging rights and the $10,000 cash award.

Com­padres which com­pris­es a blend of play­ers from across T&T has been un­beat­en since the start of the CFA Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion and is ea­ger to be award­ed for its hard work this sea­son. The team's con­fi­dence was lift­ed by its vic­to­ry over Pre­mier­ship lead­ers Cen­tral Soc­cer­world in the se­mi-fi­nals and yes­ter­day its coach Paul David Noel said he is hop­ing for an ex­cel­lent per­for­mance that will earn them their re­wards.

"We have a num­ber of top play­ers in our side. We have a top goal­keep­er John Rod­ney who has been in­stru­men­tal for us, sav­ing three penal­ties in the shoot-out with Soc­cer­world, two top strik­ers in Obasi Jones and De­on Flatts, both of whom are in a bat­tle for the lead­ing scor­er in the team, and a num­ber of oth­er play­ers who I ex­pect to put on their danc­ing shoes, come Oc­to­ber 14," Noel said.

The mouth-wa­ter­ing clash is sched­uled to fol­low a third/fourth place play-off be­tween Leeds FC and Cen­tral Soc­cer­world from 4 pm.

Con­sid­ered the top Re­gion­al As­so­ci­a­tion League in the coun­try, CFA or­gan­is­ers are try­ing to make it an event­ful day for the fam­i­ly with live en­ter­tain­ment from gospel and so­ca artistes, among which in­clude KI, Ravi B, the Harlem Tas­sa Group and oth­ers. CFA Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Clynt Tay­lor said at­tempts are al­so be­ing made to se­cure the ser­vices of top so­ca duo Fay-Ann Lyons and Bun­ji Gar­lin.

Tay­lor, who con­test­ed the 2015 TTFA Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions and lost, has been po­si­tion­ing him­self ad­e­quate­ly by be­ing the dri­ving force be­hind the CFA League. Yes­ter­day he said his as­so­ci­a­tion will at­tempt to reach out to all the youth at pri­ma­ry schools in their area by dis­trib­ut­ing 2000 free tick­ets to the fi­nal for chil­dren un­der-12 years.

The tick­ets will al­so earn the chil­dren ac­cess to free meal and snacks, but each child must, how­ev­er, be ac­com­pa­nied by his/her par­ent. In ad­di­tion, the CFA will al­so reach out to 3, 000 sec­ondary school chil­dren as tick­ets will be sent to their schools in the cen­tral area at a cost of $20 per tick­et.

Like, the pri­ma­ry schools, they too will be treat­ed to a free meal and snack. Tay­lor urges fans and sup­port­ers to come out to a day of en­ter­tain­ment at a cost of just $20, not­ing it will be more of a fund-rais­er for the as­so­ci­a­tion youth pro­grammes.

A num­ber of dig­ni­taries are al­so ex­pect­ed to be at the event, such as Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Sham­fa Cud­joe, Di­rec­tor of Sports at Min­istry of Sports Patrice Charles, Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough May­or Gopaul Bood­han and T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent David John-Williams among oth­ers.