Guapo Up­ris­ing Youths team will be aim­ing to col­lect its third set of cham­pi­onship rings when it opens de­fence of its ti­tle in the De­porti­vo Point Fortin (PF) As­so­ci­a­tion’s third Com­mu­ni­ty Foot­ball League (CFL) which kicks off Fri­day (June 14) at the Ma­haica Sports Com­plex.

The two-time cham­pi­on will face Fan­ny Vil­lage Unit­ed at 8 pm in the sec­ond match of a dou­ble-head­er. In the open­ing match, Ce­dros Pi­rates take on Egypt Unit­ed at 6 pm.

The high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed league was launched on Sat­ur­day (June 8) and will see 12 teams split in­to two groups bat­tling for the top prize of $15,000. The sec­ond-placed fin­ish­er will re­ceive $10,000 with third-place get­ting $8,000 and fourth-placed $4,000. The cham­pi­on will once again take home cham­pi­onship rings do­nat­ed by the Muhammed Isa Foun­da­tion.

In­di­vid­ual prizes in­clud­ing “Man of the Match” Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP), Youth MVP, and the Neville “Coachie” Fred­er­ick award for “Coach of the Year” will be pre­sent­ed at the end of the sea­son.

Al­so on Sat­ur­day, teams par­tic­i­pat­ed in the draw to de­cide the group they will com­pete in the pre­lim­i­nary round. The top four teams from CFL 2022 were seed­ed, form­ing Group A and Group B named af­ter Point Fortin foot­ball leg­ends, Leroy De Leon and Philbert Jones, re­spec­tive­ly.

The 2022 CFL win­ner Guapo Up­ris­ing and the third-placed team New Vil­lage FC formed Group A while the sec­ond-placed (La Brea All Stars) and fourth-placed (Pa­lo Seco Trip­py FC) teams formed Group B.

Coun­cil­lor for Ma­haica/New­lands and one of De­porti­vo PF’s found­ing di­rec­tors, Steve Guishard con­grat­u­lat­ed the La Brea and Ce­dros com­mu­ni­ties for their great ef­forts in main­tain­ing their foot­ball grounds. He em­pha­sized the con­tin­u­ing chal­lenges re­gard­ing venue prepa­ra­tions and en­cour­aged teams to ad­vo­cate for the main­te­nance of the grounds in their com­mu­ni­ties, “to get their Coun­cilors in­volved to as­sist with ground prepa­ra­tion”.

“Cur­rent­ly, three venues are con­firmed to be used - La Brea, Ma­haica, and Ce­dros with Vance Riv­er, Guapo and Pa­lo Seco work­ing dili­gent­ly to have their grounds ready,” said Guishard.

The third edi­tion of the league is be­ing used as a means to help fight against crime.

“Due to the up­surge in crime, we de­cid­ed to have the league now, “ said Guishard, adding that the or­gan­is­ers are in dis­cus­sion with MP Kennedy Richards Jr to part­ner with De­porti­vo PF.

Boston Blake, De­porti­vo PF Mem­ber in charge of se­cu­ri­ty for CFL, ad­vised that every­one re­mem­ber to be re­spon­si­ble and em­pha­sized the need for uni­ty and ca­ma­raderie, all for the bet­ter­ment of youth; “em­body­ing the spir­it of Point Fortin. Point is love!”

The tour­na­ment struc­ture will in­clude quar­ter­fi­nals with the top four teams from each group mov­ing on, fol­lowed by the semi­fi­nals with the top two teams from each group mov­ing on to the fi­nal, to see who will take home the cham­pi­onship tro­phy and rings.

Last year, Guapo Up­ris­ing de­feat­ed La Brea All Stars in the fi­nal, 3-0 to take top ho­n­ours. In the process, the Guapo-based team de­fend­ed its ti­tle won in 2019 af­ter edg­ing Ma­haica FC, 2-1.

“CFL 2024 promis­es to be an ex­cit­ing tour­na­ment, show­cas­ing all the best in foot­ball that Point Fortin and en­vi­rons have to of­fer,” said Guishard in his clos­ing re­marks.

En­trance on match days is $30 for adults, and $15 for chil­dren ages 6-12 while 60 and over, and chil­dren un­der five are free. There is al­so a group op­tion for adults, four tick­ets for $100.