The 2020 sea­son of the As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Foot­ball League (AI­FL) is miss­ing the ap­proval of the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee which is head­ed by chair­man, Robert Hadad, for ap­proval to kick-off.

In­for­ma­tion­al reach­ing Guardian Me­dia Sports on Thurs­day is that the three-tier com­pe­ti­tion re­ceived au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Con­fed­er­a­tion of North, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball (CON­CA­CAF), which was sent to the Hadad-led nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, who in turn is ex­pect­ed to re­lay the mes­sage via let­ter, to the or­gan­is­ers of the As­cen­sion Foot­ball League.

Ac­cord­ing to a source close to the league, ap­proval from CON­CA­CAF was sought be­cause the League was ex­pect­ed to cul­mi­nate in­to a re­gion­al play-off among the Caribbean's top clubs, with three teams from T&T, and one each from Bar­ba­dos, Guyana and Ja­maica. The As­cen­sion League is ex­pect­ed to mush­room in­to an 'Is­land Cup' play-off, how­ev­er, this will be with­held this year due to the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic.

Guardian Me­dia Sports reached out to Hadad via a What­sApp mes­sage to find out if ap­proval for the League had to come from his com­mit­tee, and if au­tho­ri­sa­tion had al­ready been grant­ed by the CON­CA­CAF. How­ev­er, up to press time, there was no re­sponse.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, the League could kick off a month af­ter ap­proval is giv­en. "Once that hap­pens, then the or­gan­is­ers will send out in­vi­ta­tions to all the clubs in T&T to par­tic­i­pate."

This year the tour­na­ment will be a three-tier com­pe­ti­tion with 10 teams in the top tier, like­ly to com­prise of teams from the T&T Pro League: a sec­ond-tier which is set to fea­ture 10 clubs from the T&T Su­per League and a third tier, which will com­prise teams from the six Re­gion­al As­so­ci­a­tions - North­ern, South­ern FA, East­ern FA, Cen­tral FA, To­ba­go FA and the East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU). The com­pe­ti­tions will be based on a home and away for­mat.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, "There will be prize monies to­talling $594, 000. All ref­er­ees will al­so be paid.

The tour­na­ment will al­so mark a re­turn of Fri­day Night Foot­ball, as there will be live cov­er­age of a dou­ble­head­er every week in the top tier, on re­gion­al Sports Tele­vi­sion Net­work SPORTS MAX, from ei­ther the Diego Mar­tin Sports Com­plex, the La Hor­quet­ta fa­cil­i­ty, which is the home ground of Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers and the new­ly re­fur­bished Po­lice grounds, at the St James Bar­racks in Long Cir­cu­lar.

It is un­der­stood that at­tempts are al­so un­der­way to have the live Fri­day night match­es streamed on the in­ter­net as well as shown live by a lo­cal tele­vi­sion sta­tion CNC3.

Mean­while, W Con­nec­tion Foot­ball Team, a mul­ti­ple-times win­ner of the T&T Pro League and AC Port-of-Spain will take no part in the As­cen­sion League. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day W Con­nec­tion Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) Re­nee John-Williams said a pre­lim­i­nary de­ci­sion was tak­en that the club will not par­tic­i­pate in the League this year, pend­ing fur­ther re­ceipt of in­for­ma­tion from the or­gan­is­ers, which could change their de­ci­sion. "But thus far a de­ci­sion was tak­en to not par­tic­i­pate," John-Williams said.

The 'Savonet­ta Boys' as they are pop­u­lar­ly known, did not take part in the tour­na­ment last year, along with the AC Port-of-Spain which is for­mer­ly North East Stars.

AC Port-of-Spain own­er and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ryan Nunes said he will first await con­fir­ma­tion from the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee be­fore a de­ci­sion is made at his club.

De­fence Force won the league's 2019 League 1 com­pe­ti­tion, while San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants won League 2. The League is man­aged and fi­nanced by Richard Fer­gu­osn, who is the own­er of Ter­minix La Horquat­ta Rangers FC.