MAY PEN, Clarendon — The 2009/10 season of the South Central Confederation Super League came to an exciting end two Sundays ago with newcomers Meadows FC claiming the title in historic manner before a bumper crowd at the Prison Oval.

But while the St Catherine-based outfit revels in the extraordinary feat of being the only team to win the competition with an unbeaten record, a bitter taste remains in the mouth of Confed chairman Dale Spencer.

For the past two seasons, the Confederation’s flagship competition has been without a sponsor, despite the three most recent winners — Sporting Central Academy, Rivoli United and Humble Lion FC — going on to the Premier League.

Add to that, the Confederation, like last year — won’t be able to provide this year’s winners with the usual $250,000 prize money to assist with preparation for the Premier League play-offs set to kick off in a few weeks.

On Tuesday, Spencer told the Observer it has been a difficult past two seasons — especially on the coffers of the 12 participating clubs — to run the league.

“It’s always difficult to run a competition without the assistance of sponsorship… because the clubs have to bear the burden of… referee fees and the incentive that goes to them at the end of the competition is not available unless a sponsor is (on board) to cover that,” Spencer said.

“We’ve become accustomed… to provide $250,000 when we had our sponsor at the end of the competition to assist the club that’s going forward in the play-offs… we won’t be able to do that this year and we weren’t able to do it last year,” he bemoaned.

Nonetheless, he paid tribute to the clubs, whom he described as “the real heroes in all of this”, noting that: “we will offer them whatever kind of support we can”.

Spencer, who is the immediate past president of the Manchester FA, said while the recession may have played a part in their inability to secure a sponsor, businesses with which they have had discussions said they needed to prove the Confed is capable of turning out successful teams.

“We did interviews with (our) last major sponsor and with (other groups)… and were turned down… and what came back to us was that if as a Confed we could present ourselves as an organised body… and being… able to move from one level… to the next, then our chances will increase,” Spencer said.

He said while being in the wilderness for the past two seasons, they have been working assiduously to improve the South Central brand and he is optimistic brighter days are ahead.

“What we’ve been trying to do is work on our relationship with the clubs so as to maintain the integrity of the Super League product and I do believe they have performed well under the circumstances and… have maintained the attractiveness of this league,” he said.