More money for First Citizens Cup

For the first time in the tournament’s 17- year history, all teams will be rewarded with cash bonuses courtesy of First Citizens for each win throughout the tournament. In the semi-final round, winners are to receive TT $7,000 while in the quarter-final and playoff rounds, winners are to receive TT $5,000 and TT $3,000 respectively.

The overall champions will receive TT $110,000 and TT $20,000 to the runners- up.

Formerly “No room for losers”, the First Citizens Cup will now run under the new theme “Winners will reign”.

All this, along with the match-ups for the 2016 First Citizens Cup, were revealed during the launch of the 2016 edition yesterday morning at the VIP Lounge of the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port-of-Spain.

Reigning champions W Connection, and former champions Central FC and Morvant Caledonia United all avoided the play-offs along with St. Ann’s Rangers, Police and Point Fortin Civic during a random draw supervised by Pro League (PL) CEO Dexter Skeene.

To trim the 10 league clubs for the quarter-final round of eight, the random draw pitted Club Sando against Defence Force (6pm) and San Juan Jabloteh against Ma Pau Stars (8pm) in the play-offs on Tuesday at the Ato Boldon Stadium.

Jabloteh head coach, Keith Jeffrey, welcomed the play-off match-up with Ma Pau Stars—who boasts the likes of TT World Cup 2006 members Carlos Edwards, Jason Scotland and Anthony Wolfe—saying that the Sangre Grande outfit which his side edged 1-0 in the league competition two weeks ago is “easy to beat”.

In the quarter-final round, thanks to their placements in the random draw, Police FC will tackle Point Fortin Civic and Central FC are against Morvant Caledonia United, while St Ann’s Rangers and W Connection must take on the play-off winners between Club Sando/ Defence Force and Ma Pau Stars/San Juan Jabloteh, respectively.

The quarter-final round is scheduled for the weekend of November 12-13 and the semi-finals on November 22, before the tournament culminates on December 2 with the final.

“I am confident that this year’s First Citizens Cup will be the most exciting one ever,” said Skeene during his opening remarks at yesterday’s launch.

Skeene also revealed that added to TT $1,000 incentives for the 2016 First Citizens Cup’s leading goal scorer, player of the tournament and coach of the tournament, there will also be a prize for the team with the best support ‘Posse’ (in terms of numbers, voice, uniformity, and creativity) while two TVs are among spectator giveaways.