Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) boss Mark Bennett says teams have expressed soaring confidence and are eager to get the ball rolling in this month ‘s senior championships.

The KSAFA Championship, which is the top league in the parish, is scheduled to begin on April 29 and will be played over two rounds this year compared to one last season.

Bennett told the Jamaica Observer that his organisation is grateful that championships, which has attracted some of the best schoolboy footballers in the parish, will finally get off the ground after a number of delays.

“We are happy that we will finally be getting it off the ground because it has been a while,” said Bennett.

“Sponsorship has been the main stumbling block and we have not gotten any new sponsors, but we have decided to go ahead with the one sponsor that has committed to us and that is Campari, and we are happy that they have stayed with us,” he added.

Eight teams are down to contest this year’s edition with Real Mona as defending champions.

Bennett also shared that teams are looking forward to the start of this year’s championships due to the fact that these matches will be played on community-based home grounds compared to last year when matches were played at centralised venues.

“The teams are looking forward to the start of the competition because, unlike last year when we played most of the games at a central location, all the games will be played at the teams’ home grounds, and they are happy to be playing back in their communities to get the support from citizens,” he said.

“In addition, the semi-finals will be played on the teams’ home grounds as long as they meet certain conditions, which we will be setting out for them, and so it is an opportunity for them to earn some money through the gate receipts,” Bennett added.

He said that it will take over $12 million to stage this year’s competition and his association is still in need of a lot more funding to administer the championships.

“We still want to get a lot more sponsors to this competition because we are willing to take associate sponsors to offset some of the costs that we will incur,” Bennett said.

“This championship is the top league in the parish and the standard has always been very high because the teams have been preparing and there are a lot of youngsters that are eager to show off their skills,” he added.