MONTEGO BAY, St James – Orville Powell, president of the St James Football Association (St JFA), has described as disrespectful the treatment of the recent launch of the Steve Bucknor Knockout by the clubs involved.

Just a handful of the 14 clubs involved in the competition showed up for the launch at the AguaSol Theme Park despite the one hour late start.

Powell said the competitions that were being put on by the St JFA was for the benefits of the clubs and the players and as such they had an obligation to at least turn out at the launch.

The competition, the first of the new season in St James, is open to teams in the Division One league.

Bucknor, who has sponsored the competition since its inception in the 2003/04 season, announced a 100 per cent increase in the level of sponsorship and said the top four teams would share $150,000 this season.

In addition, Bucknor will play half of the match fees in the preliminary rounds and all the match fees for the final, the top two teams will get medals while the sponsor will provide match balls for each game.

Bucknor expressed his dissatisfaction that the competition was stretched out over last season when the final was played late in the season.

He said the idea was to play the competition at the start of the season, giving the teams enough preparations and money to give them a start for the reminder of the season.

The competition will see a new format this year as it was announced that the first round will now be played on a home-and-away basis with the winners on aggregate goals scored advancing.

The top two from each of the two zones will advance to the semi-finals.

Three games are set for Friday’s kick-off which will see New Johns vs Revelations at the UDC field, Rose Mount vs Upton Flames at Albion and Glendevon vs Maldon at Tucker.