President Mussington receives a CONCACAF T-shirt from CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani as St. Martin Football League President Aristide Connor looks on. (Journal 97150 photo)
MARIGOT—President of the Collectivité Louis Mussington recently received a courtesy visit from the President of Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Victor Montagliani accompanied by President of the St. Martin Football League, Aristide Connor, for a discussion on developing football in St. Martin.
Mussington emphasised that his wish is to develop sports in general and soccer in particular. His dearest wish would be to revive the Sunday tradition where the whole family would go to the stadium to watch a game. But his ultimate dream is for St. Martin to host professional matches and for local players to be able to play internationally.
However, St. Martin currently does not have the infrastructure and cannot host official competitions. Also, putting St. Martin back on the list of leagues that can host official matches will not be immediate as it will have to go through a certification procedure.
CONCACAF which brings together 41 soccer federations has budgets under the umbrella of Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) that could help make the dream of returning to major soccer matches a reality by financing part of the infrastructure but also training centres and equipment.
Montagliani said his objective "is to raise the level of each of the federations, and St. Martin is part of it.”
Connor took the opportunity in the meeting to present a project for creation of a centre for the future of St. Martin’s soccer hopes. The St. Martin League proposes a first step of pre-training the objective of which is to identify players with high potential and to allow them to progress while balancing school studies and sport
At the end of this first training, they could, after evaluation, join a training centre and access professional contracts. The budget established to launch this centre for the first year is 231,165 euros. For Aristide Connor, taking charge of these young people would be an indirect way of reducing delinquency by offering a sporting future to young people.
