De­fence Force Past Play­ers (Over-40), and Ju­ven­tus of St John's (Over-50) will put their ti­tles on the line when the To­ba­go Mas­ters Foot­ball Tour­na­ment (TMFT) – the Caribbean’s most loved 'Mas­ters Foot­ball Fes­ti­val' com­mem­o­rates its tenth an­niver­sary Thurs­day (Oc­to­ber 10) un­til Sun­day (Oc­to­ber 13) at Shaw Park Sports Com­plex, Shaw Park and Cour­land Recre­ation­al Ground in Black Rock.

Or­gan­ised by SW Tour­ing Lim­it­ed, a lead­ing sports event man­age­ment and mar­ket­ing com­pa­ny, TMFT will once again bring to­geth­er foot­ball leg­ends and teams from across the globe in the much-an­tic­i­pat­ed event, themed “Let’s Play, To­ba­go.”

This year, the Over-40 age group­ings are named af­ter some of To­ba­go's main tourist at­trac­tions in­clu­sive of Ny­lon Pool, Ar­gyle Wa­ter­fall, Main Ridge For­est Re­serve and Buc­coo Reef whilst the Over-50 group­ings are named af­ter To­ba­go-born foot­ball leg­ends Dwight Yorke and Colvin Hutchin­son.

In the fierce­ly con­test­ed Over-40 Di­vi­sion, De­fence Force Past Play­ers, cap­tained by Christo­pher Du­ri­ty, will de­fend their cham­pi­onship ti­tle.

This year's Over-50 di­vi­sion will see Ju­ven­tus of St John's boast­ing a star-stud­ded line-up in­clud­ing St Lu­cian leg­end Earl “Ball Hog” Jean and T&T icon Clint Mar­celle put their ti­tle up for grabs against the likes of Pele Mas­ters from the USA, win­ners of the 2023 Bar­ba­dos In­vi­ta­tion­al Mas­ters Foot­ball Clas­sic, and Wildey FC of Bar­ba­dos, the on­ly non-Trinida­di­an team to win TMFT (2016).

Both di­vi­sions will see lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al teams vy­ing for some TT$60,000 in cash prizes.

A new ad­di­tion to this year's event, Penal­ty, "The Wel­come Cool­er Par­ty" will take place on Fri­day (Oc­to­ber 11) at the Shaw Park Food Hub from 10 pm to 3 am.

SW Tour­ing Ltd di­rec­tor, Ryan “Bumpy” Brown ex­pressed his ex­cite­ment about this mile­stone, say­ing: "TMFT emerged 10 years as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to po­si­tion To­ba­go as a pre­mier des­ti­na­tion in the fast-grow­ing sports tourism niche. Our clien­tele are ex­posed to the unique iden­ti­ty of To­ba­go's cul­ture, en­ter­tain­ment and culi­nary mas­ter­pieces.

“Over the years, we have at­tract­ed teams and play­ers from Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Grena­da, the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom.”

The event has pre­vi­ous­ly at­tract­ed some of T&T's most fa­mous past se­nior foot­ballers the likes of Arnold Dwari­ka, Leon­son Lewis, An­sil El­cock, An­tho­ny Rougi­er and oth­ers, as well as for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ballers from across the re­gion, like one of St Vin­cent's most capped play­ers, Kendall Velox, who spent much of his club ca­reer in T&T.

Brown stat­ed that “at­ten­dees can ex­pect top-tier en­ter­tain­ment from pop­u­lar DJs Kabu­ki and DJ Linx, along­side an ar­ray of de­li­cious food and drinks.”

SW Tour­ing Ltd is al­so proud to con­tin­ue its “TMFT Goes Green” ini­tia­tive and for the sec­ond year will part­ner with the To­ba­go Re­cy­cling Re­source Ini­tia­tive to pro­mote sus­tain­abil­i­ty by in­cor­po­rat­ing re­cy­cling bins at all venues.

Brown said that “this eco-friend­ly ini­tia­tive is part of a larg­er ef­fort to re­duce waste and sup­port en­er­gy sus­tain­abil­i­ty while high­light­ing the is­land’s nat­ur­al beau­ty.”

He added: "Spe­cial thanks to our spon­sors. This mile­stone event is made pos­si­ble with the sup­port of our val­ued spon­sors, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Sport and Cul­ture Fund, the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Youth De­vel­op­ment, and Sport, BMO­BILE, Pen­ny Savers Su­per­mar­ket, U Me­dia Brand­ing, and the To­ba­go Re­cy­cling Re­source Ini­tia­tive."

Last year, De­fence Force Past Play­ers edged 2016 cham­pi­ons, Bar­ba­di­ans Wildey Mas­ters 2-1 in their quar­ter­fi­nal be­fore a com­fort­able 3-0 semi­fi­nal win against Sun­day Krew was capped off by their 1-0 tri­umph over fel­low T&T out­fit, and pre­vi­ous­ly un­beat­en San­tos Mara­cas in their ti­tle match for the US$2,000 top prize.

San­tos Mara­cas, who col­lect­ed US$1,000 as run­ners-up, al­so topped their Colvin Hutchin­son round-robin pool ahead of de­throned cham­pi­ons ERA Mas­ters on goal dif­fer­ence and then swept past Casami­gos FC 3-0 in their last-eight en­counter and Phoenix Mas­ters 2-0 in the semi­fi­nal.

In the two oth­er Over-40 quar­ter­fi­nals, Phoenix Mas­ters eked out a 1-0 win over ERA Mas­ters and Sun­day Krew trounced Brook­lyn Cen­tral 3-0.

In the Over-50 Di­vi­sion, Ju­ven­tus-TT lift­ed the cov­et­ed US$1,000 ti­tle thanks to a hard-fought 2-1 win over Sun­day Krew in a clash of un­beat­en teams with the lat­ter col­lect­ing US$700 as run­ners-up.

Ear­li­er in the day, Ju­ven­tus-TT reg­is­tered the biggest mar­gin of vic­to­ry in the com­pe­ti­tion, 7-0 against Com­bined FC in their quar­ter­fi­nal be­fore record­ing a 3-0 win over De­fence Force Mas­ters with a spot in the fi­nal at stake while Sun­day Krew dis­patched Brook­lyn Cen­tral 3-0 in their last-eight clash be­fore oust­ing the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons TNT X-Men, 1-0.

De­fence Force swept past Phoenix Mas­ters 3-1 in their quar­ter­fi­nal, and TNT X-Men edged Cale­do­nia Mas­ters 1-0 in the two oth­er quar­ter­fi­nals. Ad­mis­sion is free to the pub­lic, with lo­cal cui­sine and re­fresh­ments avail­able for pur­chase.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion about the To­ba­go Mas­ters Foot­ball Tour­na­ment con­tact the TMFT Hot­line via What­sApp at 787-7678; call 332-3158 or email, sw­tour­ingteam@gmail.com.

Di­vi­sions and Groups:

Over-40 Di­vi­sion:

Ny­lon Pool Group: De­fence Force Mas­ters, Detox, San­tos Mara­cas

Buc­coo Reef Group: Over­due, Casami­gos, Sun­day Krew

Main Ridge F.Re­serve Group: Brook­lyn Cen­tral, Wildey Mas­ters (B'dos), D/Force Past Play­ers

Ar­gyle Wa­ter­fall Group: 1976 Phoenix FC, Hi­er­ar­chy Sun­day Sweaters, San Juan Unit­ed FC (USA),

Over-50 Di­vi­sion:

Dwight Yorke Group: Pos­i­tive­ly Com­bined, Cen­tral Mas­ters, TNT X-Men, Pele Mas­ters (USA).

Colvin Hutchin­son Group: Brook­lyn Cen­tral, Cale­do­nia Mas­ters, Ju­ven­tus of St John's, Sun­day Krew

Tour­nam­nent sched­ule.

Thurs­day, Oct 10: Shaw Park Recre­ation Ground, 6 pm

Fri­day, Oct 11: Shaw Park Sport­ing Com­plex; Cour­land Recre­ation­al Ground, 11 am

Sat­ur­day, Oct 12: Shaw Park Sport­ing Com­plex; Cour­land Recre­ation­al Ground, 11 am

Sun­day, Oct 13: Shaw Park Sport­ing Com­plex; Cour­land Recre­ation­al Ground, 11 am