BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - ALTHOUGH local interest in women's football has increased in recent years, it still trails far behind their male counterparts in terms of participation and popularity, but most recently the local girls have seen some sharp improvements.
In an exclusive interview with SKNVibes Sports, local Technical Director Lenny Lake had expressed his pleasure at the state of female football in the Federation. “With female football I am smiling and I am happy because it is on the up. If you want to compare them with the top teams in the Caribbean, I think that is unfair because in 2010 we didn’t have a female league.
“In 2011 we had 100 players to choose our National Team from and now in 2014 we have seven teams with an average of 20 players on each team and some with young players coming through, which will increase it to between 200 and 300 players.”
He also commended the local female programme and labelled it as one with potential.
“More importantly, when you have a league and after only two seasons those females can go out and compete and score five goals in their first match of Caribbean football and do not allow any against and four goals in the second match, it tells you that that programme has potential and it issomething that we must be proud about seeing that females come forward and perform this well.”
Lake however warned that the female programme would have its challenges but commended the national team on their recent achievement.
“It is not going to be a perfect programme! We are going to have our challenges. We are not asking the girls to go out there and be number one in the Caribbean at this present moment, but what they have done they are in the Caribbean Finals, which is the top eight teams. Based on the little time we had, we can say already we can see some benefits.
“Fours years ago we did not have players that could have gone on and play a match and do so well. We did play in the past even without a league and a lot of the times our performances were not as well as seen now.”
Lake also compared the Female National Team of 2014 to that of four years ago.
“In terms of comparison, what we saw back then was good but we are seeing players now who are much better, understand the game better and playing at a higher standard and giving us better performances on the field of play. We are in a position now where our female programme has the potential to get better even at a faster rate than the men.”
The St. Kitts-Nevis National Team recently finished second in Group Three of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Cup played in the Turks and Caicos. They hammered Cayman Islands 5-nil in their first encounter before trouncing Turks and Cacois 4-nil. They however lost their final game 3-1 to Bermuda to finish second in the group.
