The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), led by its pres­i­dent David John-Williams, took rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sev­er­al lo­cal sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and mem­bers of the me­dia on a tour of the al­most com­plet­ed and con­tro­ver­sial three new fa­cil­i­ties that com­prise the Home of Foot­ball at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va, yes­ter­day.

John-Williams, along with his vice pres­i­dent Ew­ing Davis and board mem­bers Wayne Cun­ning­ham, Ju­lia Bap­tiste and the sport's gen­er­al sec­re­tary Justin Lat­apy-George, showed off its 72-Room Ho­tel, (a Three-sto­ry build­ing) the In­come Gen­er­at­ing Project Build­ing (a sports bar and En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre) and a fa­cil­i­ty build­ing which is 6000 sq feet and will com­priuse (2 dress­ings rooms, a Kitchen, 2 youth dorms (male and fe­male), din­ing room for the youths, laun­dry and two coach­es quar­ters). He said all the build­ings are 90 per cent com­plet­ed.

Among the tour­ing par­ty were Pa­tri­cia and Ken­neth Butch­er (net­ball), Dud­nath Ramkissoon (crick­et), Robert Far­ri­er (cy­cling), Wen­dell Lia Hing (swim­ming) and Andy Gomez-Burk of gym­nas­tics.

John-Williams told guests about the en­gi­neer­ing of the build­ing and ex­plained the ICF tech­nol­o­gy that is be­ing used in the con­struc­tion.

He boast­ed about the en­er­gy us­age and the type of air-con­di­tion sys­tem which will be in­stalled up­on com­ple­tion.

He said, "This build­ing (re­fer­ring to the ho­tel) is earth­quake proof." He showed them the ma­te­r­i­al be­ing used in the con­struc­tion, the vary­ing sizes of rooms for ath­letes and head of del­e­ga­tions and a dor­mi­to­ry for youths which, he said, can house up to 70 youths.

Asked by Lia Hing when the fa­cil­i­ties will be ready he re­spond­ed: "All con­struc­tion work will be com­plet­ed by No­vem­ber 30, 2018, and then we will fo­cus on out­fit­ting the build­ings for use and busi­ness in the New Year."

He even jok­ing­ly threw out a chal­lenge of a bet when ques­tioned by two of his guests about the com­ple­tion date. He said, "Let's take a bet nah".

Far­ri­er said the fa­cil­i­ty is world class and these are the kind of fa­cil­i­ties which will help cy­cling in its fu­ture plans and pro­grammes and for when teams vis­it T&T.

He said, "I just re­turned from Switzer­land where I saw sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ties. Foot­ball is on the right track and my sport can ben­e­fit from this. I'm re­al­ly im­pressed and like what I am see­ing here to­day. "

Every­one ex­pressed shocked about the fa­cil­i­ties and even its en­gi­neer­ing and de­sign and the thought that went in­to the vi­sion for the fa­cil­i­ties which will al­so have six prac­tice fields.

Ramkissoon, who rep­re­sent­ed the T&T Crick­et Board, said, "It's re­al­ly im­pres­sive. All sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions can now ben­e­fit from all that they have on of­fer here. This is tru­ly a tremen­dous ef­fort and this fa­cil­i­ty will ben­e­fit sports in T&T. Cou­va is be­com­ing the cen­tre for sports in T&T with cy­cling, swim­ming, the crick­et cen­tre, the Ato Boldon sta­di­um."

He added: "Even cul­ture can be in­clud­ed with all these world-class fa­cil­i­ties here. Var­i­ous na­tion­al teams can be housed here for rea­son­able rates once they can ne­go­ti­ate with the Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion. I see they (TTFA) al­so have plans for the easy flow of traf­fic in and out of this area. In ad­di­tion, this area is not known to for flood­ing, so you can­not say you will have that kind of thing."

As the tour con­tin­ued, John-Willaims told his op­po­site num­bers that the project is fund­ed by FI­FA, the world gov­ern­ing body for the sport at a cost of TT$18 mil­lion.

He said, "When I be­came pres­i­dent back in 2015, the TTFA as­sets stood at $149,000 and in 2017 it in­creased to $46 mil­lion and when the home of foot­ball project is com­plet­ed it is es­ti­mat­ed that our as­set base will be around $160 mil­lion."

Patri­ca Butch­er, of the Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, was very high in praise about the fa­cil­i­ties say­ing: " This is of in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard. I think this is what the sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty will want. If you're talk­ing about sports tourism we can in­vite teams down here and feel proud to bring them here to per­form and feel re­lax in an en­vi­ron­ment that is very con­ducive. I'm re­al­ly hap­py to see this. I hope that net­ball will get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bless it when he cel­e­brates our 40th an­niver­sary late in 2019 or ear­ly in 2020. I have just re­turned from Liv­er­pool, Eng­land to see where the 2019 World Cham­pi­onship will take place and this is very com­pa­ra­ble to what is out there in the big coun­tries. We just need some­thing com­pa­ra­ble for net­ball to what ex­ists for net­ball in­ter­na­tion­al­ly."

Fol­low­ing that com­ple­tion, the TTFA will then move to have all the build­ings out­fit­ted so that it can start do­ing busi­ness which is ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit all stake­hold­ers in the sport.

John-Williams, a busi­ness­man and con­trac­tor while ad­dress­ing his guests, not­ed, "The aim to make this a three-star ho­tel. What we've here is the fu­ture of foot­ball, the fu­ture of sports. Sports have to start think­ing big busi­ness, and think­ing dif­fer­ent­ly and be­ing in­de­pen­dent. I must thank the gov­ern­ment for sup­port­ing us in this ini­tia­tive. This fa­cil­i­ties have mas­sive cor­po­rate po­ten­tial such as nam­ing rights, we can rent the fa­cil­i­ties to com­pa­nies, and fel­low sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and get ser­vice providers in­volved."

He end­ed by say­ing: "We'll have a wall of fame, a foot­ball mu­se­um. The rooms will bear the names of foot­ballers and the walls will sport pic­tures of our foot­ball he­roes. When teams vis­it and stay here they must feel in­tim­i­dat­ed."