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Fri, Mar

President of the Women's Football League Vanetta Flanders (left) and TTFA Media man Shaun Fuentes.
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Women's football in T&T will take place this year as planned, but only after a few key changes are made to fall in line with T&T Football Association (TTFA) requirements.

Vanetta Flanders, president of the Women's Football League (WoLF) told Guardian Media Sports on Wednesday that the challenge of having the senior women's football league stopped because of the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) season every year is being dealt with finally.

She explained that due to the large number of players who represent clubs in WoLF, the league can only take place for a few months otherwise the league has to give way to allow the players who attend to school to play in the SSFL competition.

Flanders said there are several issues, social and otherwise, that have been preventing female players from making the transition from the schools to the clubs.

She pointed out that: "There are issues with their peers, there are issues where players may have to go out and get a job to help out in the households etc that's posing challenges."

However, she promised that WoLF will work around these issues to minimise the impact on all parties involved.

Flanders, who was elected unopposed last year to take over from Susan Joseph-Warrick, who had resigned back in 2020, said they have several options to solve the problem, but they first want to take them to the membership, the clubs, and the executive before going public.

WoLF is set to hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on May 29, following which a determination will be made on whether to start the league a month after.

"The options we have are geared towards mitigating these challenges. We are trying to work around it and all I can say is that we will have to change the format of the league," Flanders explained.

She added: "These changes will, in fact, auger well for women's football in the country."

Last year the Women's Football League was sponsored by Ascension and produced an exciting final affair between Police FC and La Horquetta Rangers at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain, which the Lawwomen won to lift the title.

This year, women's football got a major boost with a new TTFA Girls U-14 League that kicked off on March 5 among eight teams from Trinidad and four from the sister isle of Tobago.

The tournament is expected to be a major development programme.