A lucky 2024-2025 T&T Premier Football League (TTPFL) football fan will drive away with a brand-new motor car.
The TTPFL and the T&T Football Association (TTFA) are rolling out a revamped league this year to focus on fans, family, culture, and football.
The league will kick off December 6, with a doubleheader at the Phase II Recreation Ground in La Horquetta, featuring Miscellaneous Police and Defence Force at 5 pm. Later, the home team Terminex La Horquetta Rangers will take on Caledonia AIA at 7 pm.
The matches will jumpstart a period of weekly and monthly giveaways and a period for families to build amid the rising crime situation according to Kieron Edwards, president of the TTFA.
“This year we have carded a Friday night football, ‘The Reboot Friday Football.’ So Reboot is the sponsor of the Friday football where we have artists, so it will be similar to the Boxing Day and New Year’s Day events.
“We will have artists only on a Friday night and the venues for those would be the La Horquetta Recreation Ground and the Diego Martin Sports Complex where we get the communities to come out, we showcase local talent, we showcase our local artists, our Trini dancehall artistes, we showcase DJs and other up and coming artists,” Edwards said.
“However, on Saturdays, all the Saturday matches would be played at the Arima Velodrome outside of the first week. We will have two doubleheaders on the Friday and then two doubleheaders on the Sunday. But at the Arima Velodrome that venue is about giveaways, so persons coming out to the Arima Velodrome can look forward to lots of giveaways, monthly giveaways of big screen TVs, couch sets etc. So once you come and enter by the gate, your ticket goes into a box and we pull from that box every week.”
He noted further: “That box then goes into a major box where at the end of the season we will give away a car, so we have the monthly giveaways of televisions, iPhone, and Samsung phones and whatnot, and then we have weekly giveaways, so every match day we’ll have (National) Flour Mills on board, ADM on board, we have FT Car Services on board, we have a few sponsors for weekly giveaways, we’ll have hampers etc, so once you come and purchase a ticket you will have a chance to win on a Saturday.
“This is the push we want to set up for Bingo draws etc, we want to make those games the novelty events, we’re going to set up tournaments for E-gamers with a first prize of $10,000, so all the men who like to brag about PS5, come and play FIFA here.
“On Sundays is strictly about family, so every Sunday match you go to, and hopefully CNC3 will be on board because we’re really trying to partner with a local free-to-air company, so we have been in discussion with CNC3 for that. But we want to have Sundays about family, so we have already engaged a company doing bouncy castle, face painting, pony rides, cotton candy and popcorn, all free for the kids on Sunday.
“We’re earmarking the Police Barracks, Mahaica Oval, and other secure venues so parents can come to watch the matches and come back and collect their kids in a safe environment. We have already worked out the mechanics in terms of wristbands so that we have the security measures in place.
“So Fridays are for parties, Saturdays for giveaways and Sundays are for family,” Edwards said.
To facilitate this initiative, the football association sprung into action to secure sponsors, including FT Car Services which has already committed to a motorcar for the end-of-season fan prize.
The promotion will continue with a Boxing Day and New Year’s Day football promotion that will place its focus on the family.
Edwards said these promotions would help to ensure that players remain fine-tuned and fit for action in the coming year, particularly for the country’s senior national team which will be involved in the Concacaf Gold Cup Prelims and the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers.
“We normally would have gone through the years playing football up to Christmas and then break, but the players would not be training, and they’re not playing football but just liming, drinking and eating food with family and then when they come back out after the Christmas break, they have to get back into motion, and this would hinder the first window with our national team. So it’s a holistic approach to why we want to play football through the Christmas period.
“It’s about fan engagement and giving the fans something to do during that period.”
SOURCE: T&T Guardian