To­ba­go clubs, Bethel SC and 1976 FC Phoenix will lock horns at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let while Po­lice FC hosts Harlem Strik­ers at the Po­lice Bar­racks Train­ing Ground, St James, both from 5 pm when the long-await­ed T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL) Tier II kicks off on Sat­ur­day (May 27).

The 14 weeks of com­pe­ti­tion will fea­ture 11 clubs fac­ing off against each oth­er in a round-robin for­mat end­ing in Au­gust.

In ad­di­tion to the quar­tet, who will be in ac­tion, the sev­en oth­er clubs who will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion hav­ing met the re­quire­ments of the FI­FA-Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee-led T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion are the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants, Queen’s Park Crick­et Club, De­fence Force, Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed, Matu­ra Re-Unit­ed and Guaya Unit­ed.

At the end of their one round of match­es, the top six teams will con­test a play­off to de­ter­mine the cham­pi­on.

In ex­plain­ing the for­mat of the Tier II tour­na­ment at its launch held last week, Col­in, Wharfe, the TTPFL chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer stat­ed that this year due to the trun­cat­ed sea­son for both Tier I and Tier II com­pe­ti­tions, there will be no pro­mo­tion or rel­e­ga­tion in the first sea­son.

He said, “The rec­om­men­da­tion com­ing out of the tech­ni­cal group was to deal with the pro­mo­tion af­ter three years. But we made the de­ter­mi­na­tion that pro­mo­tion and rel­e­ga­tion will be­gin when it’s ap­pro­pri­ate. It may or may not be next year, or the year af­ter, but year three is the out­side range that we are think­ing at and look­ing at.”

Ac­cord­ing to Wharfe, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the Tier I com­pe­ti­tion in the mid­dle of June, a knock­out com­pe­ti­tion will be held com­pris­ing both Tier I and Tier II clubs.

How­ev­er, Wharfe not­ed that it is very un­for­tu­nate that the Tier II clubs will be at a dis­ad­van­tage for this knock­out com­pe­ti­tion, as it will take place just as their sea­son kicks off, and with lit­tle time for the teams to get in­to their stride, while the Tier I clubs will be close to the com­ple­tion of their sea­son.

Tier II match­es will be played at the home of the re­spec­tive teams as well as na­tion­al sta­di­ums and oth­er ap­proved venues while sub­se­quent sea­sons of both tiers are ex­pect­ed to run an­nu­al­ly com­menc­ing Sep­tem­ber/Oc­to­ber end­ing in May of the fol­low­ing year with the first full sea­son com­menc­ing lat­er this year in Oc­to­ber, so the Tier II will have a quick restart as the sea­son will be right on top of each oth­er.

Match Day One fix­tures

To­mor­row:

Bethel Sc vs 1976 FC Phoenix, Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let, 5 pm

Po­lice FC vs Harlem Strik­ers, St James Po­lice Bar­racks Train­ing Ground, St James, 5 pm

Sun­day (May 28):

Guaya Unit­ed vs De­fence Force, Guayagua­yare Rec. Grd, Guayagua­yare, 4 pm

QPCC FC vs San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants, St Mary’s Col­lege Ground, Ser­pen­tine Road, St Clair, 4 pm

Matu­ra Re-Unit­ed vs Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Utd, Venue to be con­firmed, 5 pm

UTT - bye