By VINO
New BVIFA Technical Director Katie Rowson will be attending the first CONCACAF u13 7 v 7 Girls Tournament in Antigua as part of a new initiative to expand the Female game across the Region. Photo: VINO/File
The first CONCACAF Girls Football Tournament (7 v 7) takes place at the Antigua Recreation Ground (ARG) on Saturday April 11, 2015 and the BVIFA’s new Technical Director, Katie Rowson, will be in attendance.
The tournament is just one aspect of a slew of events taking place over the weekend with an opening ceremony planned for Friday night at the Multipurpose and Exhibition Cultural Center and a female coaches workshop slated for Friday April 10, 2015.
The sessions will be conducted by CONCACAF Instructor Heather Dyche, who outlined the ultimate purpose for the initiative. “Antigua has done a great job of already creating a grassroots programme and a U-13 league so we are down here just to support them and help to run a 7v7 tournament and do everything we can to help grow the league,” she said. “What we want to do is help grow four things. One is their technical ability on how to run sessions, plan sessions and how to team. The second part is the tactical aspect so we will look at formations, understanding the game, in-game coaching and the other two pieces are the psychological and physical part of coaching females that tend to be a little different from coaching males so we just help to identify those and then really hope that we help the candidates to leave better coaches.”
Coordinator of the women’s programme, Gwen Salmon, echoed Dyche’s sentiments that the initiative is one that will serve to improve the FA’s ability to produce quality female players and coaches.
“It’s going to help us to expand our grassroots programme we have on Saturday mornings so this is going to be beneficial to the women’s department of the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association and I am excited and I am just looking forward to the games on the weekend,” she said.
Encouraging females
Meanwhile, President of the ABFA Everton Gonsalves said having the first instalment of the CONCACAF tournament will serve to encourage more females to get involved in football.
“I want to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to CONCACAF for ensuring Antigua is granted this pilot project. As you know, our mandate is all about the development of football in general but female football holds a special place in our hearts and we want to ensure that Antigua is keeping pace with the rest of our colleagues throughout the region and internationally in terms of female football development,” he said.
The tournament will commence on April 10, 2015 with a presentation on “football for girls” for the parents. The matches will be played on April 11 and 12, 2015.
Sixteen teams from schools across Antigua and Barbuda are currently in the programme and 10 clubs from the ABFAmembership will compete in the open age category.
Also attending the tournament will be heads of female programmes from the Leeward Islands member associations which are Montserrat, Anguilla, USVI, BVI, St Kitts and Nevis and St Maarten.
