By Paul Nicholson
April 29 – History will be made in the Caribbean next month when the first Caribbean Football Union (CFU) senior women’s tournament will be held. Winners of the inaugural CFU Women’s Caribbean Cup will qualify for both the CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup and the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The pathway to staging the tournament has not been straightforward with CFU general secretary Damien Hughes expressing “a sense of profound joy and relief” in his notification of the participating and host nations.
Hughes apologised for the late notification – his letter to federations was sent April 7 with the Group matches starting May 21 – but the challenge was clearly to get the tournament off the ground.
“Let me unreservedly apologise for the delay in disseminating this information,” said Hughes, “but this was due primarily to several countries who had committed either to participating or hosting groups changing their minds due to their inability to raise the requisite financial assistance to either compete and/or host.”
The tournament is a landmark for the Caribbean region which recently hosted a successful women’s U20 tournament and boasts one of just three female FIFA executive committee members in Sonia Bien Aime.
20 national associations will be grouped into four groups of four nations and one group of three. The Final Round will be hosted by Trinidad & Tobago in August 2014. The eight team final round will feature the First Round Group Winners, the two Best Overall Second Place Teams from the four team groups and host country Trinidad & Tobago.
CFU president Gordon Derrick has been a promoter of the tournament and the Antigua and Barbuda federation will be one of the group hosts.
Derrick has used his close links to the US and its federation executive, drafting in the USA’s Under-17 women’s coach, Tricia Taliaferro to coach Antigua & Barbuda.
“We have also had some assistance through the United States Soccer Federation and they have sent down a young lady, a top coach who has come from time to time just to oversee what we are doing to give us some hint and to give us some encouragement and direction as we seal with the team specifically so to be honest I am happy,” said Derrick.
“I know you could never have enough preparation and we are going to be sitting down with the coaching staff as we come closer and we will step up certain aspects of it, making sure that the girls are sharp and ready for the tournament,” he said.
CFU Women’s Caribbean Cup – Group draw
Group 1: Antigua and Barbuda (host), Aruba, St Vincent and Grenadines, US Virgin islands
Group 2: Puerto Rico (host), Barbados, Dominica, Martinique
Group 3: Turks & Caicos Islands (host), Cayman Islands, St Kitts and Nevis
Group 4: Haiti (host), Cuba, Guadeloupe, Suriname
Group 5: Dominican Republic (host), Anguilla, Jamaica, St Lucia
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