After 101 years of existence, the Barbados Football Association (BFA) finally has a field that it can call its own.
It might have taken over nine years for phase one of the FIFA Goal project to be completed, but an upbeat president Ronald Jones has promised to take the first kick on the new artificial field which has received the blessings of the world governing body for football, FIFA.
At yesterday’s handing over ceremony at its Wildey location, to the east of the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium, BFA’s facility chairman Halley Haynes said the BFA had so far expended $2.8 million on the facility, inclusive of architectural and engineering designs for the three-storey new headquarters of the association.
Haynes said FIFA had contributed an estimated $1.3 million, which represents $800 000 from the goal project and another $500 000 from a special grant, which FIFA’s president Sepp Blatter donated to its affiliate member associations.
He said the remaining funds were provided by the BFA over the deductions from FIFA’s annual grants between 2002 and 2006.
“So when people were saying not a blade at Wildey, what we were doing was strategically planning because of the cost associated with the field and we made funds available, which were kept at FIFA for this purpose,” Haynes said.
He also disclosed that the BFA was in danger of losing the project, but said the intervention of former CONCACAF president and FIFA vice-president Austin “Jack” Warner saved the day for Barbados.
He said FIFA had already approved Goal Two which involves the construction of the facility and other infrastructural work such as roads, a car park, offices, the secretariat, a library, a kitchen and dressing rooms, among other things such as a main staircase and emergency staircase.
Haynes said the BFA was awaiting the release of the final contracts and had projected six months for the completion of the second phase at the end of August and making the facility a centre of excellence.
FIFA’s AstroTurf expert Dr Eric Harrison said the artificial field was just as good as any in Brazil or other places in the world and was suitable for Champions League qualifying matches and international games.
“The project is based on the concept that FIFA doesn’t believe in second best,” he said.
But Joop van Krimpen, director of Multifields, which installed the surface, warned the BFA to “use it but maintain it” noting the maintenance was critical to its survival.
Jones, in his address, admitted that while other countries in the Caribbean were going into their fifth goal project, the BFA was only now into Phase 2A, because of many challenges with the location of the field.
“This is a sporting hub in Barbados and is captured within a community and therefore there were challenges at the initial outset of the project,” he said.
He said the BFA had to reapply to the Chief Town Planner but noted there shouldn’t be any challenges.
“As yet we don’t have lights here. We will have to revisit that which will give us a little opportunity for training even in the late evening for our national cohorts,” Jones said.
Jones said the field would now allow the junior and senior national team to train consistently, while noting it could also be utilized for competitive matches, even during the season.
