The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) has ini­ti­at­ed steps to en­ter the Na­tion­al Men’s Un­der-17 Team in­to the T&T Pro League’s Un­der-18 Di­vi­sion.

The in­ten­tion, rec­om­mend­ed by Head Coach, Rus­sell Lat­apy, and sup­port­ed by the T&TFA’s Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor, An­ton Corneal, is to af­ford the cur­rent squad of play­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be ac­tive­ly in­volved in com­pe­ti­tion as it con­tin­ues its prepa­ra­tions for forth­com­ing CON­CA­CAF qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ments.

The T&TFA wish­es to state that it had ini­ti­at­ed di­a­logue with the man­age­ment of the T&T Pro League. T&TFA Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Justin Lat­apy-George, gave the as­sur­ance on Fri­day that the Na­tion­al Un­der-17 Team, once per­mit­ted by the Pro League, will ap­pear in the com­pe­ti­tion as a Na­tion­al Team and not com­pete un­der the ti­tle of any oth­er team. Lat­apy-George said that there had been some dis­qui­et among our stake­hold­ers based on this mat­ter so he need­ed to clear­ly state the po­si­tion of the T&TFA.

He said, “What we have done is to fur­ther ac­tions re­lat­ed to our dis­course by writ­ing to the League re­quest­ing it’s con­sid­er­a­tion to al­low the As­so­ci­a­tion’s Na­tion­al Un­der-17 Team to com­pete in the Un­der-18 Di­vi­sion of the Pro League. We be­lieve that we have sub­mit­ted a re­quest that will re­ceive favourable con­sid­er­a­tion. How­ev­er, ir­re­spec­tive of the fi­nal de­ci­sion of the League, it is im­por­tant that I ex­tend thanks for their con­sid­er­a­tion. It is piv­otal that I again note that if our ap­pli­ca­tion is ac­cept­ed that the team will com­pete as the Na­tion­al Un­der 17 Team.”

Both Lat­apy-George and Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor Corneal stat­ed that it was ev­i­dent that this type of ap­proach proved to be suc­cess­ful in the past, mak­ing ref­er­ence to the Un­der-20 Team of 2008, par­tic­i­pat­ing in and win­ning the Na­tion­al Su­per League that year be­fore go­ing on to qual­i­fy for the 2009 FI­FA Un­der 20 World Cup in Egypt.

Corneal re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of hav­ing na­tion­al teams like the Un­der 17 and 20 in ac­tive com­pe­ti­tion pri­or to their re­spec­tive qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ments lat­er this year.

“We feel this is the best way to go in terms of try­ing to en­sure that the teams are in ac­tive com­pe­ti­tion over a spe­cif­ic pe­ri­od which falls in line with their prepa­ra­tions pri­or to the Con­ca­caf qual­i­fy­ing match­es,” Corneal said.