Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Anil Roberts says that he wants to steer T&T's pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball clubs to be­come more like the St Ann's Rangers with its strong roots in the com­mu­ni­ty. Roberts was speak­ing at the Rangers's An­nu­al Youth Award at St Mary's Col­lege in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day night where he praised the club for em­brac­ing the spir­it of the Min­istry's Lo­cal­ize Itt cam­paign. "St Ann's Rangers is a com­mu­ni­ty team with com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, a fam­i­ly back­ground and its func­tions as a se­ri­ous tool for youth de­vel­op­ment," he said. "This is where the T&T Pro League and Su­per League's oth­er teams must go. We must not have teams that have no home. That chil­dren and par­ents and youth groups and church­es feel no affin­i­ty to. That is why we have been floun­der­ing." Roberts said that the Min­istry would be work­ing to­wards mov­ing pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball match­es from ma­jor sta­di­ums to com­mu­ni­ty grounds in or­der to give teams a bet­ter sense of iden­ti­ty.

Roberts, who trav­elled to Dubai lat­er that night to ac­com­pa­ny George Bovell III at the World Short Course Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships, promised the club that the Min­istry would build a new pavil­ion at Pres­i­dent's Grounds "tai­lor-made to the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty." He ad­vised the Rangers ad­min­is­tra­tors not to be con­tent with achiev­ing lo­cal su­prema­cy but to try to build an in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion to the point where ma­jor clubs would want to form al­liances with them. He al­so urged the young foot­ballers to rise above peer pres­sure and set their own stan­dards in life. "When your oth­er part­ners want to waste time, you ex­plain to them that you have foot­ball prac­tice, you have to go in the gym or you have to go and run. Ex­plain to them that that's what re­al men do. Tell them what is cool is go­ing and work­ing hard and lis­ten­ing to their coach and rip­ping up men on the foot­ball field and com­ing to award cer­e­monies and win­ning tro­phies. That is cool."