Footballers in Barbados will now not only get a chance to showcase their skills to their coaches before the new season, but will also be involved in a fundraising charitable tournament when they play in the inaugural Ivan “Spee” Forde Charity Shield.
The tournament, which has been conceptualized by Forde, a former Barbados striker, is being staged as a precursor to the Barbados Football Association’s 2014 season, which is scheduled to start next month and to assist the victims of the heavy floodings in neighbouring Caribbean islands of St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica.
It will begin on Saturday with two matches at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. at the Parkinson Field Ground in Pinelands and is being staged in conjunction with the Hamilton Lashley Human Development Foundation.
“Most of you football fans and players would know that the English and European seasons in soccer normally begin with a Charity Shield and that is a permanent fixture on the international soccer circuit, particularly in Europe,” Lashley said.
“What we are hoping also is that all of other major disciplines in Barbados, at the start of their domestic seasons, would adopt a Charity Shield or a charitable thing to launch their season, which will go toward the most vulnerable,” he added.
Forde said the tournament would also serve as a fundraiser to assist those Windward islands which were all hit by an adverse weather system which caused severe flooding, resulting in a number of deaths and physical damage on Christmas Eve.
Forde said the name of each participating team would be placed on barrel and on match days, the fans of the various teams and other members of the football family will have the opportunity to put in their various donations of canned foods, toiletries, bottled water and drinks which would be collected at the end of the touranment for shipment to the affected Caribbean countries.
“We feel this is a worthwhile effort and Mr. Forde himself really believes that we can use the concept of the Charity Shield,” Lashley added.
He said that sports was now the catalyst for social development.
“All disciplines of sports now must be seen as that non-traditional catalyst in the way that we raise funds and orchestrate in our own society. It is a critical mechanism that must be used in the development of this country.”
The participating teams are Notre Dame, Brittons Hill, Wales, Gall Hill, Tudor Pride, Porey Spring, Silver Sands, Parish Land, Pinelands and Ellerton.
There will be no entry fee for the teams and while there will be no prize money, Forde said there were likely to be individual player awards like boots and accessories once the business sector came on board.
He, however said that the winners could receive a full playing kit, in future tournaments.
