TEF on board with Concacaf Caribbean Club Championship
The FLOW Concacaf Caribbean Club Championship will once again be hosted by Jamaica after a hugely successful staging here in 2018.
This was announced at a press conference at the offices of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) by Manolo Zubiria chief football officer at Concacaf on Tuesday.
The week-long tournament will be played at the Stadium East field from Sunday May 12-19 involving local clubs Red Stripe Premier League champions Portmore United FC and the runners-up Waterhouse FC. They will square off with two clubs from Haiti for the chance to qualify for the Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League.
Coming onboard as a first-time sponsor is the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) and their executive Director Dr Carey Wallace explained why his organisation chose to align with the Caribbean Club Championship.
“We at the TEF have a mandate to develop Jamaica’s tourism product, to enhance the diversity of it so that it attracts more tourists, a wider cross section of tourists. The good thing is that Jamaica is blessed with so much diversity of offerings and, in this case, sports is one of the things,” he said.
Wallace pointed to the huge role that sports has played in developing brand Jamaica.
“Our brand is influenced so much because of all our sportsmen and sportswomen performances in the past and what it has shown on the world stage. It has made Jamaica’s name synonymous with sports and so from a tourism standpoint it helps us when we build out the capacity of our sporting experience.
“In this case, this is one of the ways, in particular the football sector, will benefit from tourism getting involved to sure that it’s a success as far as the FLOW Concacaf Caribbean Club Championship,” Wallace noted.
The TEF boss is hoping to increase the tourist experience in Jamaica beyond just the beaches of the island.
“We want to ensure that those who travel for sports and those who choose Jamaica just because its more than sun, seas and sand, but sports is also included that, they will choose to come out of the hotels and experience the games and the offerings where that’s concerned,” he reasoned.
“So we are building out sports, we are building out gastronomy, we are building out health and wellness, we are building out entertainment. Tourism in building out the experiences that Jamaica offers and here today we are proud to be supporting the JFF in this venture,” he concluded.
