CATHERINE HALL, St James — The delay in the completion of the setting up of floodlights at the Montego Bay Sports Complex at Catherine Hall for the semi-finals and finals of the CONCACAF Under-17 finals next month was a major disappointment for the inspection team on Wednesday’s tour of the facility.

The lights were scheduled to have been completed by January 10, it was heard, and in place for the inspection on Wednesday. However, when the inspection team arrived at the facility all they saw were two of the pylons in place.

Manolo Zubiria, CONCACAF’s director of marketing and television, and Jill Francisco, CONCACAF’s deputy general secretary, headed the touring party that also included and included the Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) general secretary Horace Reid and Howard McIntosh, chairman of the JFF’s technical committee.

The semi-finals on February 25 and finals on the 27th are both scheduled to be played under lights, with matches set to start at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm both days.

The group had toured several facilities, including the Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium, where games will be played as well as several of the facilities that will be used as practice grounds as well as hotels.

Francisco told members of the media on Wednesday that the delay in the completion of the floodlights was the “biggest issue” and that they hoped it would be ready in time to avoid having to make changes to the schedule.

She said having lights was important as they had negotiated with the television rights holders for certain time slots and had started selling satellite times.

Meanwhile, following what he described as an “excellent meeting” of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) at the St James Parish Council yesterday, Reid told the Observer they had been given a deadline of February 7 when the lights will be ready for inspection.

While saying this would not be the “ideal situation”, Reid said it was a workable time frame “providing all the specifics were righ”.

On Wednesday evening Francisco told the media she had not seen the updates on the actual process of when they (the lights) will be up.

She said having an idea would be ideal as “it is important for us to be able to continue our contracts with the television broadcasters that we have, the time slots that we have already broadcast and were selling the satellite times”.

She said she was hopeful the process would be completed “hopefully in a week as we are running out of time to be able to do the inspections”.

“The television crew needs to be here to do the lights inspections, that’s why I changed my schedule which was to come down and be with our director of broadcasting and be able to check the lights and make sure they were up to his standards, so that part is a little disappointing, but we hope in the next week or two weeks it will be completed and available for the last minute inspection as we are getting close to the deadlines,” she added.

If the lights were not in place, the CONCACAF executive said it would result in the changing of the times for the semi-finals and finals — a situation they would hope to avoid.

“We would most likely have to change game times, which would throw off a lot of the television and planning for the finals of the event, which would be very unfortunate when we had a concrete promise that they would be finished, so we are hoping they will be able to carry through just delayed in some parts,” she said.

Other than the issue of the floodlights and some minor concerns about the readiness of the field in Trelawny, Francisco said things were falling nicely into place for the staging of the two-week tournament.

“I think we are getting there,” she told the Observer. “We (inspected) the hotels and are working on the small details now to get ready for the teams.”

The field in Trelawny, she said, “need some work. I was a little bit disappointed to see that there were so many brown spots, but I think they are trying to improve some of the conditions to get rid of the weeds”.

“I did not check the practice facilities myself as we did not have enough time, but in Trelawny the stadium is nice but they definitely have some work to do.

“They’re getting ready for the Jazz festival coming up and so we see some of the improvements will happen because the Prime Minister is behind that, so now we hope the government will help the JFF complete the other promises,” she said.

She was, however, full of praise for the stadium at Catherine Hall.

“I think this stadium looks great,” she said. And while she arrived too late to get a good firsthand look, she said “from what others say it’s in great condition and they’re very happy and the facility looks to be fantastic. It is always hard being the first event to open up a stadium,” she added.