By Paul Nicholson
January 19 – With FIFA election candidates lobbying for votes and a flamethrower as entertainment for the assembled, the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) focused on its own football activity at the weekend, for the first time holding a ‘public’ draw ceremony for the 2016 CFU Men’s Caribbean Cup in Antigua.
CFU members had been invited for a series of confederation meetings with the highlight being the draw event for the revamped competition which will qualify four Caribbean teams for the 2017 Gold Cup – CONCACAF’s blue riband event for national men’s teams.
The CFU have significantly changed the competition structure that, for the first time, will see all matches played to a winning result. Teams that are tied at the end of extra time will go to penalty shoot-out.
CFU president Gordon Derrick said: “This is an important event for us. It will show how we are progressing across our whole region and how committed our people are. We have kept the competition within the international dates in the FIFA calendar and to do this we have created seven groups of three teams. Each country will have one home game and no-one will have to play more than twice in that international window.”
The importance of the home game is that it allows member associations to make money from hosting a game in their own market with their own ticket sales and sponsors. Often the financial burden of one nation hosting a group has proved too great in a market desperate to increase its international match opportunities.
The first round will see the seven groups qualify 15 teams to a further five groups of three, with the introduction of St Vincent and the Grenadines at this stage. This second round will qualify five teams for a third round of eight with the introduction of Jamaica, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago.
With every match having a winner the likelihood of teams being level on points and any measure of goal differentiation are unlikely, hence avoiding the need for any tie-breakers in qualification stages.
The top four teams qualify for the 2017 Gold Cup with the fifth placed team winning a play off with Central America’s sixth placed team for a further Gold Cup place.
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