Turks & Caicos Islands To Compete in The New CONCACAF Nations League
This week in Miami Florida, The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) launched its new Nations League. This took the format of a series of workshops attended by the Presidents, General Secretaries and Men’s Football Directors of 40 countries. The program commenced on March 6, 2018 with a series of workshops detailing the structure and procedures of the new Nations League. This culminated on March 7, with an event at Temple House where the official draw was held. In addition to hosting the draw for its one-off qualifying phase, CONCACAF unveiled its new logo.
For the Qualifying Phase the games are scheduled to take place over the official FIFA match windows beginning in September of this year, with the Inaugural Nations League group phase consisting of three tiered leagues, kicking off next year.
Following the preliminaries, all CONCACAF member associations’ men’s national teams will be assigned by performance into one of three leagues, A, B or C, and continue to compete in a home-and-away round robin format over the course of the group phase. The top league finishing off will determine which teams qualify and advance to the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
“The launch of the CONCACAF Nations League, conceived over the last two years and guided by the ‘ONE CONCACAF’ principles of unity and access for our region’s football, is the defining moment marking the completion of our transition into a new era for our 41-member CONCACAF family. The Nations League assures that all our members will have the opportunity to play more and compete more, which in turn will propel greater development of the sport at every level,” said CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani in a prior press release.
The Turks and Caicos Islands will play its qualifying games against three other Caribbean countries; namely, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Guyana, and St. Vincent. The league will witness over 34 member association men’s national teams playing in a total of 68 total fixtures
The Schedule for Turks & Caicos Islands Men’s National Team (TCI) is listed below:
1. Away game - Cuba vs. TCI September 2018 FIFA window
2. Home game - TCI vs. Guyana October 2018 FIFA window
3. Home game - TCI vs. St. Vincent November 2018 window
4. Away game - BVI vs. TCI March 2019 FIFA window
Commenting on this new Nations League, TCIFA’s President Sonia Fulford (Bien-Aime) said that “one of the main challenges we faced as a Member Association was the lack of games for our Men’s Senior National Team. This new league will provide regular sanctioned competitive International games which will obviously assist in the improvement of our National Team. The Players and Technical Department of the TCIFA are excited by this opportunity and we congratulate CONCACAF on this enlightened initiative.”
77 Likes, 2 Comments - Concacaf Nations League (@concacafnationsleague) on Instagram: "Matchups have been set for the Concacaf Nations League Qualifying Phase, kicking off this September..."
