Prompt pay for Digicel Cup.
By: Ian Prescott (Trinidad Express).
Jack Austin Warner, right, the president of the Caribbean Football Union, and Calum Macdougal, Digicel's head of sponsorship, hold up the Digicel Caribbean Cup which eight countries will compete for from January 12-23 here in Trinidad and Tobago.
PROMPT payment of prizemoney, reasonable entrance fees and football of good enough quality to be carried live to North America, England and Japan, are some of the promises made for the 2007 Digicel Caribbean Cup Finals which run from January 12-23 in Trinidad and Tobago.
The competition kicks off tomorrow at the Hasely Crawford Stadium where a new-look T&T take on Barbados at six o'clock. And two hours later, Haiti face Martinique.
It will be the first competition for T&T's "Soca Warriors" since last year's World Cup. But they will be without most of their overseas-based professionals and are fielding a young team featuring several former under-23 players and fringe senior national footballers.
Jack Austin Warner, the president of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), declared that the bar has been raised at the 2007 Caribbean Finals as he laid out some of the new innovations at a media conference yesterday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Warner confirmed the prize structure as being US$120,000 to the winners. The second-placed team will receive US$70,000; third gets US$50,000 and the fourth team still walk away with a tidy US$30,000 prize.
"These prizes shall be paid within 24 hours of the event. Even FIFA does not do it so good," Warner declared. "That is an indication of how the bar has been lifted," he said. "We have lifted the bar in terms of the type of competition we are putting on in the next 10 or 12 days. We simply have reached. Now, we are on Fox Sports and we are on Japanese media. We are going live on 42 countries."
Warner, a vice-president of FIFA, the governing body for world football, also said that teams have a great incentive since for the first time, the four Digicel Caribbean Cup semi-finalists will also all qualify for the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup which takes place in the United States in mid-year.
Warner also remarked that the CONCACAF Gold Cup winners shall go on to represent the region at the Confederations Cup.
"So, in a sense we are playing from Port of Spain (Digicel Caribbean Cup), to New York (Concacaf Gold Cup) to Johannesburg (Confederations Cup)", Warner said.
Warner also added that despite his best efforts, sponsors Digicel had insisted on an entrance free of just $20 for the uncovered stands and $50 for the covered terraces during the preliminary matches.
The semi-finals and final entrance fees will be $100 (covered) and $50 (uncovered).
And Warner hinted that the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation will not be able to sustain such low entrance fees when they host international matches.
"I made the point to Digicel that after these games, we still have big football to play here. But these guys don't listen," TTFF special advisor Warner said.
Calum Macdougal, head of the Digicel sponsorship, promised a tournament to remember, beginning with a spectacular launch prior to the opening doubleheader at the Hasely Crawford Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
The launch will consist of an opening parade of the eight finalists, after which, there will be a gala Carnival celebration, showcasing what T&T and the Caribbean are about.
Digicel have also promised fan incentives consisting of free giveaways of Motorola cell phones and other products.
"What we wanted to do was build a tournament which reflected the Caribbean passion for football," Macdougal said, while explaining that they had insisted on an eight-team final in keeping with major international tournaments. Macdougal said already, the tournament has had its big moments, such as Turks and Caicos winning their first ever international football match and an upset victory by St Vincent and the Grenadines who knocked defending champions Jamaica out at the preliminary stage.
Twenty-five matches have been played in 12 countries during four months of qualifying, yielding a record 190 goals in 51 matches.
