The Cayman Islands is gearing up for an exciting three days of international youth football and sports fans island-wide are encouraged to show their support as the country hosts the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Under 17 World Cup Qualifiers, scheduled for Wednesday, July 20th, Friday, July 22nd and Sunday, July 24th at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex.

Under the leadership of newly elected President of the Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) Lee Ramoon, the Association has worked diligently over the last month to secure the hosting of Group 2 of the qualifiers.

Countries participating in this group include the Cayman Islands, Aruba, Puerto Rico and
Haiti.

In the tournaments opening games on Wednesday, July 20, Puerto Rico play Haiti at 5:00 p.m. and the Cayman Islands face Aruba at 7:30 p.m. On Friday, July 22, Haiti play Aruba at
5:00 p.m. and the Cayman Islands face Puerto Rico at 7:30 p.m. On the final day of competition, Aruba face Puerto Rico at 5:00 p.m. and the Cayman Islands play Haiti in the finale at 7:30 p.m.

Winners from Group 2 will join the winners from the other five groups of Caribbean qualifiers along with host country Trinidad & Tobago and the best runner-up in the final round of the CFU Under 17 World Cup Qualifiers, scheduled for September 18 to September
25, 2016.

For the teams competing in the final round, five spots will be available for qualification into the CONCACAF Under 17 World Cup Qualifying Tournament to be played in early 2017. The Caribbean’s representatives in the last edition of the CONCACAF tournament were CFU champions Haiti, runners-up Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Cuba and St. Lucia.

Four countries from CONCACAF will qualify for the 17th edition of the FIFA Under 17 World
Cup Finals to be played in India in September and October 2017.

The Cayman Islands’ team has been preparing for the past five years for opportunities such as this to showcase their talents and to do so in front of their home crowd is extra special for this group of boys.

Coordinator for the Cayman Islands Youth Football Programme and the Under 17 National Football Programme Neil Murray said, “We need to change our football culture and we need to do it now. No longer do we want to just participate in these very important international tournaments, we want to compete and set a precedent for our Under 15 and Under 13
National Programmes so they can ‘raise the bar’ for future youth national teams.
This tournament is this present group of boys’ world cup. The players can take enormous pride in saying that they competed in a FIFA Youth World Cup, whatever the outcome.”

In 2015, this group of players placed third out of 12 countries in the CFU Under 15 Boys’ Caribbean Championships in Sint Maarten. This third-place finish was the first time a youth national team from the Cayman Islands had ever finished in the top three in any competition.

Mr. Murray added, “We are under no illusion that this will be easy, quite the contrary. The three visiting countries are experienced, strong and very talented, but we will not worry about how they play, we must concentrate on playing our game, to our strengths. The coaching staff of Ernie Seymour, Ken Downey, Antwan Seymour and Luis Morejon have worked extremely hard to prepare this group and we will do our best. Can this group make history once again like they did last year? We will see.”

All sports enthusiasts are encouraged to come out to the Truman Bodden Sports Complex and support our Under 17 National Team as they battle for a place in the final round of the CFU Under 17 World Cup Qualifiers.

The theme for the Cayman Islands team during the qualifiers is “Support our Nation”. Just make sure you are there.

IMAGE: Kareem Foster (#8 in red and black) will play an important attacking role for the Cayman Islands in the Under 17 World Cup Qualifiers.