The Cayman Islands Under 15 National Boys Football Team will be competing in the 2015 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Under 15 Championships in St. Maarten and Anguilla from August 8th to August 16th.

With the traditional CONCACAF Under 15 Championships postponed this year, the CFU has organised a ‘scaled-down’ version of the Championships with 12 countries participating.

The 12 countries are divided into three groups of four – Group 1: Anguilla, Cayman Islands, St. Lucia and the United States Virgin Islands; Group 2: Bonaire, Dominican Republic, Grenada and St. Kitts & Nevis; and Group 3: Antigua & Barbuda, Curacao, St. Maarten and St. Vincent & The Grenadines.

Countries in Group 1 will play their games in Anguilla while Group 2 and Group 3 will be stationed in St. Maarten.

The local boys will begin the competition against St. Lucia at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 8th and will face the United States Virgin Islands on Sunday, August 9th at 3:00 p.m. Their final group game will be against host country Anguilla on Monday, August 10th at 5:00 p.m.

The top two countries from each group will advance to the quarter finals scheduled for Wednesday, August 12th with the semi finals on Friday, August 15th and the championship game to be played on Sunday, August 16th. The quarter finals, semi finals and championship game will be played in St. Maarten.

With only two weeks to prepare the team due to the very short notice given by the CFU, the coaching staff of Ernie “Gillie” Seymour (Head Coach), Antwan Seymour (Assistant Coach and Team Manager) and Bruce Sigsworth (Assistant Coach), are confident the local boys will be competitive and do themselves and their country proud. The majority of this squad have been training and playing together for the last four years and have competed in a number of local and overseas tournaments in preparation for occasions such as this.

Commenting on the tournament CIFA’s Vice President and Interim President Bruce Blake said, “With the postponement of the CONCACAF Boys’ Under 15 Championships, we were committed to finding a tournament for our Under 15 National Team to compete. We are pleased that the CFU stepped in to organise a Caribbean version of the Under 15 Championships. I am most grateful to Martin Cooke, Ernie Seymour, Antwan Seymour and Bruce Sigsworth for pulling everything together on such short notice. I wish the team all the best”.

Participating in the Under 15 Championships will be an excellent opportunity for the coaching staff and players to gauge their performance against other Caribbean competition as they prepare for the CFU Under 17 World Cup Playoffs scheduled for July/August 2016.

The squad of 18 players depart for St. Maarten on Thursday, August 6th.