Tridents safe in Nations League

The Barbados Tridents cannot be demoted from this year’s Concacaf’s Nations League tournament.

That’s because in a series of sweeping changes announced yesterday, Concacaf disclosed it would be revamping its Nations League competition, as well as qualifying for 2024 Copa America and 2026 World Cup.

The regional governing body for football said the changes would take place between 2023 and 2026.

As part of the changes, there will be an increase in the number of teams in League A. This means while the League B group winners will gain promotion to League A, no team from League B will be demoted.

The League C group winners will also gain promotion to League B.

The Tridents, who currently occupy last place in Group A of League B on zero points having lost all four of their games played, were in significant danger of being demoted to League C.

They recently returned from their tour of Grenada where they drew all three of their international friendly matches and have two more matches remaining in their Nations League campaign.

They will take on Cuba at the Wildey Astro Turf on March 23 and Antigua and Barbuda on March 26 in an away fixture

However, in a telephone interview with Barbados TODAY, president of the Barbados Football Association (BFA) Randy Harris said he believes it might serve the Tridents better if they had been relegated.

While Harris explained that the changes by Concacaf were made because of the challenges presented by the Covid pandemic, he said it was always difficult for amateur teams like Barbados to compete against professional players.

“The truth is that most of the teams from the Caribbean were out of commission for quite a while in terms of their preparation until Covid was over. It is what it is and Concacaf made the decision for a number of reasons and it is another chance for us to keep improving,” Harris said.

“The thing is that sometimes it may serve you better to restart from [League] C, because it is difficult in the B and A zones when amateur teams are playing against professional players and that is a fact.

“I don’t think any of our member associations that made it in League A were able to really compete on the level of their opponents,” he added.

randybennett@barbadostoday.bb