March 4 – The next steps towards the creation of a long-talked about Caribbean Professional League were taken yesterday with the announcement by CONCACAF of a Task Force to look at the feasibility of a regional league.
The Task Force has pulled in some heavyweight members from leagues outside the region including Don Garber, Commissioner of Major League Soccer, and Decio de Maria, President of Liga MX. The English Premier League is named as a Special Advisor.
“The Premier League is honored to be one of the special advisers to this task force. We are making our entire executive team available to offer any help we can in realizing the potential for top-class professional football in the Caribbean,” said Richard Scudamore, Chief Executive of the Premier League. “The region’s football fans deserve it,” he added.
Garber, who has recently announced new MLS franchises in Orlando and Miami and is reorganising the ownership of the second MLS franchise in LA, has hands-on experience of how to create a high level professional league. “Our focus will be to analyze the feasibility of a sustainable business model – one that can serve as the cornerstone to build a league that provides a platform for Caribbean talent, as it develops equity and value in the long term,” he said.
The first meeting of the task force will be in Los Angeles on March 12. “I am certain that there are immense untapped opportunities for football in the Caribbean,” said Jeffrey Webb, president of CONCACAF. Webb has been the driving force behind the creation of the task force and frequently expressed his belief that the Caribbean needs a professional league but that it must be properly structured and sustainable.
“We need to evaluate thoroughly how best to convert potential into a viable structure that could create new futures for clubs, players, fans and the game as a whole,” he said.
Most of the Caribbean Islands already have their own leagues and with 31 Caribbean federations, the task of creating an inclusive league structure is not straightforward. There was a previous attempt to create a Caribbean league which played between 1992 and 1994 but was unable to establish a consistent competitive formats or league name over its three seasons of play. It closed before the start of the 1995 season.
“Analyzing past attempts to develop such a project in the region will provide important information as we seek to create an entity that serves the good of the game. Any new plans must respect existing structures in each country and successfully fit into an already crowded international soccer calendar,” said de Maria.
Caribbean Professional League Task Force
Chair: Dr. Yves Jean-Bart, President of the Haitian Football Federation
Members:
Dr. The Right Honourable Keith Mitchell (Prime Minister of Grenada), The Right Honourable Edward Seaga, O.N., P.C. (former Prime Minister of Jamaica and Chairman of the Jamaican National Premier League), Damien Hughes (General Secretary, Caribbean Football Union), Simon Firth (Partner, Maples and Calder, Cayman Islands), Don Garber (Commissioner, Major League Soccer), David John Williams (Owner/President, W Connection Football Club, Trinidad and Tobago), Decio de Maria (President, Liga MX), The Honourable K.H. Randolph Horton, JP, MP (Speaker of the House of Assembly of Bermuda), Randy Harris (President, Barbados Football Association), James Johnson (Senior Manager Member Associations, FIFA), Shaka Hislop (Football Commentator and Former Trinidad & Tobago National Team Captain)
Special advisors:
The Premier League (England), Jefferson Slack (Senior Vice President, Global Business Development, IMG), Kieran Foley (Group Head Marketing, Digicel)
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