So­ca War­riors coach Dwight Yorke has wel­comed the Afro-Caribbean In­vi­ta­tion­al, the Uni­ty Cup in Lon­don in­volv­ing T&T, Ghana, Ja­maica and Nige­ria, as a fan­tas­tic chance for his team to play qual­i­ty op­po­nents.

The quar­tet of Ghana, Ja­maica, Nige­ria and T&T will fea­ture in the four-na­tion com­pe­ti­tion at Brent­ford FC’s Gtech Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­di­um in West Lon­don as the tour­na­ment makes a re­turn af­ter 21 years and will run from from May 27 to 31, 2025.

Yorke’s So­ca War­riors will face Ja­maica’s Reg­gae Boyz in one semi­fi­nal and the first-ever ‘Tri­ni-Jam” clash on Unit­ed King­dom soil, while the Ghana ‘Black Stars’ and Nige­ria square-off in an all-African en­counter in the oth­er semi­fi­nal.

All four teams will re­turn to the same venue on Sat­ur­day, May 31 for an ex­cit­ing dou­ble-head­er with the semi­fi­nal losers meet­ing in the third-place play-off, fol­lowed by the fi­nal to crown the 2025 Afro-Caribbean cham­pi­ons.

Last month, Yorke, 53, led the So­ca War­riors to a 13th ap­pear­ance in the main draw of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup af­ter a 6-1 Pre­lim­i­nary Round ag­gre­gate win over Cu­ba fol­low­ing a 2-1 away win and a 4-0 tri­umph at home at the At Boldon Sta­di­um, in Bal­main, Cou­va.

Pri­or to com­pet­ing in the 16-team main draw Gold Cup in June, Yorke and the So­ca War­riors will re­sume their Sec­ond Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers against St Kitts/Nevis and Cos­ta Ri­ca in Group B.

T&T is cur­rent­ly sec­ond in their 2026 FI­FA Con­ca­caf World Cup Sec­ond Round Group B qual­i­fiers on four points from two match­es to trail Cos­ta Ri­ca, who has a max­i­mum of six points.

This af­ter the So­ca War­riors drew their open­er at home with St Kitts & Nevis 2-2, fol­lowed by an em­phat­ic 7-1 blowout of the Ba­hamas, and will com­plete their four-match sched­ule at home to St Kitts/& Nevis on Fri­day, June 6, fol­lowed by an away out­ing to group favourites Cos­ta Ri­ca four days lat­er.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries, the top two teams will ad­vance to the next stage of the Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers, and fol­low­ing the of­fi­cial an­nounc­ing of The Uni­ty Cup, Yorke said, ““The Uni­ty Cup in Lon­don is a fan­tas­tic op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to face qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion as we pre­pare for the Gold Cup and World Cup qual­i­fiers in June.

“Play­ing against teams like Ja­maica, Ghana and Nige­ria — na­tions with strong foot­balling tra­di­tions — will chal­lenge us in all the right ways. These match­es will help us fine-tune our squad, build chem­istry, and en­sure we are in the best pos­si­ble shape for the chal­lenges ahead. It’s all about growth, im­prove­ment and main­tain­ing mo­men­tum.”

Ibrahim Musa Gusau, Pres­i­dent of the Niger­ian Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (NFF), added, “We signed on to the tour­na­ment as it of­fers a vi­tal op­por­tu­ni­ty for our team to bond ahead of the FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fiers in Sep­tem­ber. The Uni­ty Cup has a spe­cial his­to­ry — and the Su­per Ea­gles have al­ways been part of that jour­ney.”

Er­ic Chelle, coach of Nige­ria, not­ed, “We’re look­ing for­ward to tak­ing part in the Uni­ty Cup. It will give us the chance to try out a few new play­ers in dif­fer­ent roles, help­ing us strength­en the squad be­fore our Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber match­es.”

William Troost-Ekong, cap­tain of the Su­per Ea­gles, added, ““This is a great tour­na­ment for us to re­unite and con­tin­ue strate­gis­ing for the up­com­ing World Cup qual­i­fy­ing games. We’re look­ing for­ward to it.”

Kurt Ed­win Sime­on-Okraku, Pres­i­dent, Ghana Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, added, “I’m thrilled to see the Uni­ty Cup bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er at Brent­ford Sta­di­um in Lon­don. This tour­na­ment is a shin­ing ex­am­ple of how sports can bridge cul­tur­al di­vides and fos­ter a sense of com­mu­ni­ty. I wish all the teams the best of luck and look for­ward to see­ing the ex­cit­ing match­es un­fold. I know match­es be­tween Ghana and Nige­ria are al­ways in­tense, no mat­ter what’s at stake, and we’re all ex­cit­ed about the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­ter­tain our fans across the globe.”

Leices­ter City’s Jor­dan Pierre Ayew, cap­tain of the Black Stars, added, ’”We are pumped to be part of the Uni­ty Cup at Gtech Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­di­um, Brent­ford, in Lon­don. As cap­tain of the Black Stars, I’m proud to rep­re­sent Ghana on the glob­al stage. Match­es against Nige­ria al­ways bring an ex­tra lev­el of ex­cite­ment, and we’re ready to give it our all and en­ter­tain our fans world­wide. We’re look­ing for­ward to an in­tense bat­tle on the pitch and mak­ing our coun­try proud.”

Ja­maica Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion Pres­i­dent Michael Rick­etts added, “In­deed the JFF is very ex­cit­ed to be par­tic­i­pat­ing in The Uni­ty Cup. This is cer­tain­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty for our ‘Reg­gae Boyz’ to ex­pose them­selves at the high­est lev­el. So we are very ex­cit­ed – I’m sure this will au­gur very well for the fu­ture of some of our young play­ers. We are so very ex­cit­ed at the prospects and look­ing for­ward to mak­ing an im­pact when we play our op­po­nents in The Uni­ty Cup at the end of May.”

With a ca­pac­i­ty crowd of 17,250 ex­pect­ed for each match day, Brent­ford FC is proud to host the tour­na­ment. Club am­bas­sador and for­mer Ja­maica in­ter­na­tion­al Mar­cus Gayle stat­ed:

“We are ex­cit­ed for the re­turn of the Uni­ty Cup and so proud to host the tour­na­ment at the Gtech Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­di­um. This tour­na­ment will not on­ly bring to­geth­er elite foot­balling tal­ent from Africa and the Caribbean but al­so cel­e­brate the deep cul­tur­al and sport­ing con­nec­tions be­tween these na­tions.

“This is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for the world to see the thriv­ing tal­ent of these play­ers. We look for­ward to the en­ter­tain­ment the Uni­ty Cup brings and see­ing the tour­na­ment make its mark once again.”

Ro­ti­mi Pe­dro, of Afro Sport, said, “We are proud to bring back The Uni­ty Cup. It’s been a long jour­ney to re­vive this im­por­tant com­mu­ni­ty event, and we’re de­light­ed that fans of African and Caribbean foot­ball will once again en­joy top-tier in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball at Uni­ty Cup 2025. We are grate­ful to Brent­ford FC for pro­vid­ing a home at the Gtech Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­di­um and look for­ward to wel­com­ing fans back to what, even af­ter 20 years, re­mains a cul­tur­al mo­ment for many who at­tend­ed pre­vi­ous Uni­ty Cup tour­na­ments. Uni­ty Cup 2025 is a week-long cel­e­bra­tion of our in­ter­con­nect­ed cul­ture in food, mu­sic and com­e­dy an­chored around elite foot­balling tal­ents from our home na­tions.