YOUTH Football League’s Youth Cup organiser Paula Pinnock says a tournament for girls will start in March.

The Youth Cup heads into its championship stage on Saturday with eight teams competing in Kingston, but Pinnock is already looking ahead to expansion after what she says has been a successful staging so far this season.

“We’ve added additional regions — we’ve gone to Manchester and we’ve gone to St Ann since starting in Kingston and Montego Bay,” Pinnock said. “We’ve now expanded to U-12 and U-13 and we’re looking forward to our next tournament — which will be U-7s, U-9s — and we’re finally going to introduce girls to the football league.”

Since the league’s start in 2022 Pinnock has spoken of the importance of having girls playing football at the grass roots level, especially because of the issues the national programme has finding enough local talent of the standard for selection. But a growing league, still searching for further sponsorship, meant the plans were delayed.

“We’ve been talking about it for a long time,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done at the girls’ level. There are so many schools not playing football for girls — even academies and clubs don’t have girls’ programmes — so rather than keep talking about it, we’re just going to jump in and start. It will be a small start, but a start nonetheless. We’re looking to do that for our next tournament in March.”

The U-12 Championship features Spanish Town Primary, Joga Bonito Academy, Port Antonio Primary, Norbrook Strikers Academy, Hillel Academy, Redemption Academy, Balmagie Primary, and Corinaldi Primary.

The U-13 section consists of St Catherine High, Glenmuir High, Belair High, Steer Town Primary, Manchester High, Norbrook Strikers, Our Kids Academy, and Joga Bonito Academy.

“There is a combination, which is what we wanted,” Pinnock said. “We wanted schools, obviously, to have the first round and participation, but we opened up the U-12 and U-13 because the age group went a little higher. So now we have high schools participating, we have clubs participating, and we have academies participating.

“At the end of the day, we want as much football being played as possible.”

The tournament is also endorsed by former national player and Head Coach Theodore Whitmore, who is now the head coach of Mount Pleasant Football Academy.

He was in attendance at the final round of regional play, which took place in Drax Hall, St Ann, on Saturday.

“I think it’s very important for the development of football,” he said. “The youth are the future and they’re the upcoming generation. A tournament like this augurs well for the country’s football. I’m here looking to see if there’s any extra talent we can add to our programme to develop and to be national players — whether U-15, U-17, or U20 — and looking forward to the senior team.”

The games kick off at the UWI’s Mona Bowl at 9 am.