KINGSTON Football Academy (KFA) and Techmax Sports Academy landed the major prizes at the delayed KSAFA/Guardian Life Limited XMAS U-10 Tournament held at the National Water Commission Field on the weekend.

The two-day competition, which was postponed from December last year, had 31 participating teams, 18 clubs and 13 academies.

Guardian Life Limited insurance adviser Michael Waite challenged corporate Jamaica to support grass roots football.

“This is an extremely good initiative because we are talking about building youngsters and building young achievers — and when you are talking about the future, that is what Guardian is all about. These are our young ‘ballers and we are definitely happy to be a part of it.

“I want to say to corporate Jamaica that we need to get involved in building this thing because we are talking about building Jamaica,” he said,

Newly installed KSAFA President Mark Bennett said that despite the delays to the hosting of the competition it was critical for his organisation to continue their youth programmes.

“For us it was always important that we deliver on our programme, and the U-10 is a part of our structured programme of development,” he noted

Bennett outlined that the tournament falls in line with KSAFA’s overall plan for youth football development.

“Our development plan calls for three tournaments per year, every four months, so it was important that we have these tournaments to give these youngsters the opportunity to showcase their skills. The youngsters and the clubs, they would have been preparing themselves over time to participate in the event.

“The U-10 has become a staple at this level [as] it gives the youngsters an opportunity to play football with their peers in a competitive environment. I am certain that it does well for their development, and we have to ensure that every opportunity is given to the youngsters to play as much football as possible at this level,” Bennett stated.

The next level up for KSAFA in their youth programme is the Under-13, which made hosting the Under-10 competition very necessary.

“There is a big gap of three years between U-10 and U-13 so when a youngster misses an opportunity to participate in this competition, they will miss a great opportunity so it was important and necessary for us to pull out all the stops to have them play,” Bennett said.

Although staged by KSAFA, 13 of the teams that participated in the competition were from outside the confederation.

Sixteen teams survived Saturday’s day one and advanced to the play-off rounds on Sunday.

In the championship quarter-finals, Benders defeated Santos 2-0, Ballaz edged Elite Express 1-0, Total Football Academy (TFA) defeated Norbrook Strikers 3-1 on penalties, while KFA clipped Young Kings 1-0.

In the President’s Cup quarter-finals, Tivoli beat Rockfort 3-2 on penalties, Techmax beat Central Kingston 2-1, Brown’s Town edged Red Hills 1-0, and Barbican beat Fire Striker 2-0.

In the championship semi-finals Ballaz scored a comprehensive 3-0 win over Benders while KFA battled past TFA 1-0 in a very competitive match.

Both President’s Cup semi-finals were decided by penalties. Brown’s Town beat Barbican 2-0 while Techmax beat Tivoli 2-1.

Asheem Reynolds scored his seventh goal of the tournament in the final of President’s Cup as Techmax beat Brown’s Town 1-0 to win the consolation prize.

Techmax received $25,000 for winning while Brown’s Town got $20,000 for their second-place finish.

The top goalkeeper was Linton McLeod of Techmax, the MVP was Romoy Brown, while the leading goalscorer was Asheem Reynolds. The Best Team Manager was Nathan Geddes Morrison.

The championship final was also decided by a 1-0 margin as KFA denied Ballaz another lien on the trophy.

The top goalkeeper in the championship was Gabriel East of KFA, while the MVP and leading scorer was Andre Vanzie Jr of KFA.

Best Team Manager was Carlene Edwards of Ballaz Academy while the Best Team Coach was Rogrick Hibbert of KFA.

KFA walked away with $55,000 for winning while Ballaz received $45,000 for finishing second.

The next KSAFA/Guardian U-10 will be held in April.

– Dwayne Richards