Jamaica Gleaner
General manager at Harbour View Football Club, Clyde Jureidini, is looking forward to tomorrow’s start of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Championship qualifiers and believes the tournament will help to raise the profile of local and regional clubs.
Harbour View will look to add to their two championships – won in 2004 and 2007 – when they host Zone Three of the 13-team competition, which features three zones of four teams at Harbour View Stadium.
Guyana’s Alpha United, Trinidad and Tobago’s Defence Force and Suriname’s Notch will all be hunting group honours, with all three zone winners advancing to the semi-finals, where they will meet defending champions Valencia (Haiti).
The semi-final winners and the third-place play-off winner will all qualify to the 2014-2015 CONCACAF Champions Lea-gue, and Jureidini believes the remodelled competition provides a great platform for local and regional players to develop and increase the overall regard of club football in the Caribbean.
“This is a very important competition,” said Jureidini, with one eye on yesterday’s first-team training session. “You can’t develop local players within your parish or community alone. You have to go across new borders.
“We have to make those steps at the international club level for us to take it seriously, for the players to take it seriously and for the international world to take local and regional club football seriously,” added Jureidini.
There is little doubt that Harbour View is approaching the CFU Club Championships with full focus. Corrective work to the playing surface and a damaged section of the perimeter wall, beautification work in the general community, and a player camp are just some of the indicators.
“The ultimate goal is to get into the top three, go to the semi-finals in April, get in the top three there, get to CONCACAF and then, hopefully, in time,” he added, in relation to the CONCACAF Champions Cup. “None of the Caribbean teams have gotten out of the preliminary rounds in CONCACAF Champions Cup, so we have to go there.
Up the standard
“We have been telling people that national leagues in Europe and North America are the leagues to go to, it has to be that Jamaican and Caribbean leagues have to get the standard up for greater recognition, making it a much better environment all around,” he declared.
Harbour View, which beat Tivoli Gardens in 2004 and Trinidad and Tobago’s Joe Public in 2007 to the title, are joined by another Jamaican club, Waterhouse, in this year’s tournament.
Waterhouse will compete in the Haiti-based Zone Two against home team Miribalais, Suriname’s Inter Moengotapoe and Trinidad and Tobago’s Caledonia AIA.
Zone One features Cayman Islands’ Bodden Town, Puerto Rico’s Bayamon and Curaçao’s Centro Dominguito.