CFU News - Warner: In depth study for CONCACAF youth football

Warner: In depth study for CONCACAF youth football
Issued by Shaun Fuentes, TTFF/CFU Media Officer, September 10, 2007

CONCACAF President Jack Warner says that he will be setting up a meeting
of the Confederation's Youth and Technical Committee to assess the
performance of the United States, Costa Rica, Honduras, Haiti and
Trinidad and Tobago at the just concluded FIFA Under 17 World
Championship in South Korea.

Warner, chairman of the tournament's organizing committee said he was
far from impressed by the showing of the Concacaf representatives and
will await an in depth study into the reasons for the below par
showings. Only the US and Costa Rica progressed beyond the group phase
and were knocked out Germany and Argentina respectively.

"I was not quite impressed with the CONCACAF teams and regrettably our
standard seems to be on the decline though in Peru we were rescued by an
exceptionally good Mexican team. Even the US who have consistently been
taking part in this competition since its inception was not as good this
year as in previous years and I will have to call a meeting of our
Confederation's Youth Committee and Technical Committee to do an
in-depth study into the reasons for this present state of affairs,"
Warner said after witnessing the final won by Nigeria on Sunday in
Seoul. Members on the CONCACAF technical committee include Dick Howard,
Manuel LaPuente, Trinidadian Alvin Corneal, Robert Jenkins and Rodrigo
Kenton.

The FIFA Vice President did agree though that in some instances the
level of play was of a high standard as the Under 17s looked a class
above their age category.

"You are absolutely correct and this is true of so many teams besides
the regular ones as Brazil and Argentina or even the African teams. And
, in his regard, I refer specifically to such teams as England,
Tajikistan and Peru together with all the other teams in the Semi
Finals.

"It is my belief that Europe has now realized that they have to develop
their football from the bottom up and not only rely on International
transfers to satisfy their need for players at club level.More and more
we shall be seeing more of the traditional European powerhouses taking
part in these age group competitions."

Warner, while admitting that the crowd attendance was not up to par,
didn't agree that it had to do partially with the early exit of the
hosts South Korea.

"T&T was eliminated in the first round in 2001 and that did not prevent
thousands of fans from being both inside and outside the stadia for each
match thereafter. Just recently in the FIFA World U 20 Championship in
Canada just two months ago, Canada was eliminated in the first round
without even scoring a goal and yet there were huge crowds at all the
matches with sell out crowds in many of them. And Canada is a much
bigger country, in size, than Korea. The plain and simple fact is that
the attendance was low principally because of poor promotion and
marketing and this coupled with the adverse weather conditions accounted
for the parlous attendance," Warner added.

He remains optimistic that the Under 20 Championship in Egypt in two
years time and the next Under 17 Finals in Nigeria will be even more
impressive.

"In Egypt, I expect everything to be better and I expect the same in
Nigeria in two years time where the defending champions' country,
football is a religion," Warner concluded.