Ali Cup football tournament kicks off Thursday with 20 schools competing
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Since its initial staging in 2018, the organisers of the Ali Cup Football Tournament say the event has experienced growth, while having an impact on schoolboy football.
At the launch of the event on Wednesday afternoon at the Excelsior High auditorium in Kingston, Tournament Commissioner Oral Hillary told Observer Online that all is in place for the three-day event.
“Since we started seven years ago, we moved from having eight teams to now having 20 teams, so the growth is evident. The tournament is endorsed by ISSA (Inter Secondary Schools Sports Association), and we continue to have an impact on schoolboy football. As it relates to our objectives, yes, we have started to realise those objectives that we set out to do when we first started,” said Hillary.
Hillary continued, “This event is about memorialising and highlighting the tenure of Alan ‘Skill’ Cole as a student athlete here at Excelsior from 1983-1989. Unfortunately, we lost Alan in 2017. He always used this phrase ‘Love in the House’ and based on that phrase, we decided we had to do something, and the idea to do a tournament became a reality in 2018 as a two-day competition with just eight teams.”
The Ali Cup, which gets going Thursday at 9:00 am at the Excelsior High School will continue until Saturday, when the final play-offs will take place.
“In 2023, we decided to use the modified Olivier Shield style format, having a DaCosta Cup bracket and a Manning Cup bracket where the winner of the Manning Cup will always play the winner of the DaCosta Cup bracket,” said Hillary.
The ten DaCosta Cup teams competing Thursday in 20-minute matches are: Alphansus Davis High, Belair High, Christiana High, Foga Road High, Mannings High, St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), Thompson Town High, Titchfield High, Vere Technical and William Knibb Memorial High.
On Friday, the ten Manning Cup teams that will battle it out on the field are Camperdown High, Campion College, Dunoon Technical, Excelsior High, Hillel Academy, Kingston College, Tivoli Gardens High, Kingston Technical High, Vauxhall High and Wolmers Boys.
The top two teams from each zone will advance to Saturday’s final.
