Twenty-three young local footballers attached to the clubs in the Digicel Pro League will have a chance to impress former England and Liverpool legend, Jamaican-born John Barnes with the hope of securing a one week stint at English Premiership club Sunderland FC.
This was announced by Karl Donnelly, Digicel Head of Sponsorship at the Digicel Kick Start Clinic media launch held at the Digicel Box, Queen’s Park Oval, Tragarete Road, yesterday. The two-day Digicel Kick Start Clinics, will be held at the St Mary’s College Ground, Serpentine Road, St Clair from 9.30 am today and tomorrow.
It will also be the only clinic to be held in the English-speaking Caribbean this time around. The clinics will continue in Panama (July 24 & 25); El Salvador (July 28 & 29) and Honduras on August 4, 5 and 6 at the end of which Barnes, a former Jamaica national coach, announces the eight selected players a day later who will go to England for a seven-day stint at the Sunderland AFC Academy from August 23rd to 29th.
Commenting on the clinics and his role as coach, Barnes, born to a T&T father said, “The clinics are a fantastic initiative which searches for the best and brightest footballers to give them the opportunity to train under professional coaches and to be in with a chance to spend one week training at the Academy of Light.
Over the past four years, we have seen a wealth of talent emerge from each of the countries the clinics have visited and I’m excited to meet this year’s crop of talent.” “As I always say, in the Caribbean there is a wealth of talent like Kenwyne Jones and Dwight Yorke and Russell Latapy when they played.
But what made them stand out was their right mental attitude and great physical attributes for success. However, Barnes pointed out to the players that to suceed at the highest level, the youngsters who will participate in the clinic needed to have the right attitude, discipline and determination. During his address, Donnelly noted that his company was delighted to be holding the clinics for the fourth year running.
“At Digicel, we are committed to supporting the development of football across the region from the grass roots level and we believe that the clinics give aspiring young footballers a fantastic opportunity to learn valuable football skills under the guidance of professional coaches with a wealth of international experience.”
Donnelly also explained that the reason for the clinics not being extended to the other Caribbean countries as done in the past was simply due to time constraints and and limited resources.
“We recently hosted the Digicel Cricket Series with the West Indies and we were also the official broadcast sponsors for the Fifa World Cup in the entire region with the exception of T&T so it took up some of our time.
The Digicel Caribbean Championships is due to kick off pretty soon so out time frame to work with the clinics are very short,” added Donnelly.
Caribbean Football Union Project Manager, Wayne Riley, pointed out that Digicel continues to show that they are prepared to take football to the grass roots level.
“Their increase support also allows for young men to dream their dreams and determine their own destinies, said Riley. In the past, the local duo of Leston Paul and Ryan Frederick were selected by Barnes to attend the Sunderland Academy.
List of participants:
Matheaus Williams, Maurice Ford (Caledonia AIA); Keiron Matthews, Khafra Anderson (Defence Force FC); Yafeu Rougier (FC South End); Shaquille Bertrand, Daryn Jaggan (Joe Public FC); Mackesi Quashie, Kyle Celestine, Sergio Braveboy, Kern George (Ma Pau SC); Derice Ramsey, Mikhail Williams (North East Stars FC); Tariq La Roche, Dominic Raymond (St. Ann’s Rangers); Akeem Garcia, Aikim Andrews (San Juan Jabloteh FC); Brendon Creed, Aaron Noel, Marques McClean, Stephan Spicer (Tobago United FC); Marcus Dillon, Matieon Wilson (W Connection FC).