BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AFTER 18 months of inactivity, the St. Kitts and Nevis Senior National Football team is expected to see an increase in action in the coming months.
In an exclusive interview with SKNVibes, local Technical Director Lenny Lake outlined some of the upcoming plans for the national team.
“We have the Caribbean Cup Finals which will be from September 3 to 7. We are in a group with Guyana, St. Lucia and Dominica and the top two will go on to the second stage.
“We should commence training in probably the next couple of weeks. After the Final Four, we want the players to get some rest and when we start training we should be engaged in a couple friendlies. We have not identified any countries as yet but we will be playing a few friendlies here in St. Kitts in preparation for that group stage.
“We have identified players to start training and that announcement will be made in the next few days.”
Lake also gave a reasoned exposition for the team’s dormancy, citing a lack of resources as the main one.
“We have not played for over 18 months and one the real reasons is lack of resources, because when you have to play international friendlies as an association you have to bear the cost of travel and accommodating your team.
“We also have to make sure other programmes such as females U-17 and U-20 are able to take part in other Caribbean tournaments and World Cup Qualifiers. So what you find happening is that our resources have been stretched across the various age groups, so sometimes you have to give priority to certain programmes.”
He also explained that there is no steady competition for the national team outside of World Cup Qualifiers and the Caribbean Cup.
“Also, the Caribbean Cup is every two years; so once you don’t qualify for the gold cup it will be another two years before you are in a next competition. Only when you have World Cup Qualifiers plus the Caribbean Cup you have steady competition.
“Sometimes you have to allocate your funds for the more important matches...the competition as opposed to using them on friendlies. That is why we have not engaged much in friendlies because the resources are not there. It is something that we will love to do even if we play three friendlies a year.”
The Technical Director also hopes that in the future more funds could roll in so that more friendlies could be played in preparation for those matches.
“We are hoping in the future that we may benefit more financially from the local league to sustain the various programmes. We hope that the public would realise and understand that football is a lot of money to run these programmes.”
Lake stated that dormancy such as this equates to the national programme having to restart.
“You always need these matches to see where you are at and how much work you have to do. When you have a period like this where you are not active, it is almost like starting over. You depend on the local leagues to keep the players in shape and match ready.”
This current inactivity has seen St. Kitts and Nevis slip to 160 in the latest FIFA ranking after achieving its highest ever ranking of 106 in 2012.
