President of the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) Mark Bennett says his administration has prioritised the establishment of key standards for youth football competitions within the confederation.

On Sunday the association wrapped up the Easter edition of the Guardian Group-sponsored Under-10 competition, which took place on the artificial surface at the Barbican Playing Field.

Norbrook Strikers edged Liguanea United (Ballaz Academy) 2-1 in the marquee Guardian Cup competition with a last-minute winner, while Barbican FC blanked Mountain View 2-0 in the consolation President’s Cup tournament.

Bennett, who underlined the importance of providing opportunities for players at this age group, also admitted that there was work to be done in terms of ensuring that there is consistency with field and goal sizes as well as game length and other standards as far as grassroots football is concerned. He believes it is the responsibility of the parish associations to develop and enforce these standards.

“It is really the parishes that are to lead on youth development. And even though it is the parishes’ responsibility, it’s kind of a paradox because the parishes are the ones that make up the JFF board, so you could say that the JFF also has overall responsibility in developing standards and all of that but the JFF seems to be pretty much focused on national team development, as opposed to on national football development,” said Bennett.

The administrator noted that guidance will be taken from FIFA’s recommended standards as well as those from established footballing nations.

“We have already started a discussion with the academies. We want to register the academies and also come with standardised field dimensions and all of those things because there’s a standard for teams participating in the U-7, U-9, U-11 and so on. Some countries differ but there’s generally a standard from FIFA or even countries that are First World in terms of football development. We can copy those things and fit it back to our local conditions. The technical committee, they are the ones that are looking at that and we are coming out with a programme shortly which will see us having tournaments, running for at least four months of the year for these age groups — U7, U9, U11, so they will come out with the standardisation in terms of field size, goal size and so on,” Bennett said.

Bennett said he was generally pleased with the execution of the Guardian Group Under-10 tournament despite some challenges, which included a two-hour delay to the start of the competition on Saturday’s opening day.

“There have been some glitches and one of the issues is that we have some new staff that are pretty much new to football but I’m happy that we have gotten to this point. The kids have enjoyed it, notwithstanding the glitches that we have and the clubs all enjoyed it. I know they are looking forward for the summer edition of the competition,” Bennett said.

Norbook Strikers’ Daquan Palmer was named as the Most Valuable Player in the Guardian Cup competition while Liguanea United’s (Ballaz) Nariek Adamson walked away with the trophy for the tournament’s best goal-keeper. Rocco Barnes from Ballaz Academy scored the most goals of the tournament, 12. Richard West from Norbrook Strikers was the best team manager of the competition.

In the President’s Cup, Alaycia Dunn from Barbican FC was named as the MVP.