All is be­ing done in an­tic­i­pa­tion of an Oc­to­ber start to the As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Foot­ball League, this year.

Ke­iron Ed­wards, the La Hor­quet­ta Rangers gen­er­al man­ag­er said he is hop­ing to en­sure that all T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTFA) mem­ber clubs reach a point of at least full vac­ci­na­tion soon, to bol­ster their chances of hav­ing foot­ball.

On Ju­ly 25, Ed­wards who al­so holds the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (EFA), said all the Rangers play­ers, coach­es, and oth­er staff were ei­ther ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed or had re­ceived their first dose of the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) vac­cine. The in­ten­tion now is to en­sure that all oth­er club mem­bers re­ceive their vac­cines.

The As­cen­sion League will cater for near­ly all di­vi­sions of foot­ball in T&T, in­clu­sive of the T&T Pro League and Su­per League; the six Re­gion­al As­so­ci­a­tions - such as the EFA, North­ern FA, South­ern FA, Cen­tral FA, To­ba­go FA, and the East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU); Fut­sal; and the Women's Foot­ball League (WoLF).

How­ev­er, a pro­pos­al for an Un­der-20 League is now gain­ing the at­ten­tion of the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee. The League (U-20), has been or­gan­ised by of­fi­cials of Club San­do and its spon­sor Tiger Tank, Ed­wards has said, but it is un­cer­tain when it will get go­ing.

The pro­pos­al is said to be in the hands of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee chair­man Robert Hadad, who is out of the coun­try, at­tend­ing the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup in the Unit­ed States. But Ed­wards and Brent San­cho, in­ter­im chair­man of the T&T Pro League, are both con­vinced that the U-20 tour­na­ment has won the heart of Hadad, and is cer­tain to be ap­proved.

Ed­wards and Rangers re­ceived ap­proval last year to hold the As­cen­sion League from the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, but now he said the or­gan­is­ers are con­fused af­ter Hadad, told An­dre Bap­tiste dur­ing a TV in­ter­view in June that no per­mis­sion would be grant­ed to in­di­vid­u­als to hold com­pe­ti­tions this year.

He be­lieves that the Un­der-20 tour­na­ment should not be ap­proved if the As­cen­sion Leagues is not giv­en sim­i­lar ap­proval.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that Hadad held a meet­ing with the pro league clubs, as well as Clay­ton Mor­ris, pres­i­dent of the T&T Su­per League (TTSL) to gar­ner sup­port for the U-20 com­pe­ti­tion.

From that meet­ing, the clubs were all giv­en the op­tion to field a team in the tour­na­ment if they can.

Ed­wards said he wrote to Hadad last week and awaits a meet­ing with the lo­cal foot­ball boss on his re­turn to the coun­try.