Adrian Frater, News Editor

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE WESTERN Inter-Parish football competition, which is sponsored to the tune of $500,000, kicks off today with the Under-17 and senior teams of Hanover and Westmoreland at home to their Trelawny and St James counterparts in first-round matches. The Under-17s, who are vying for the Stephen 'Shorty' Malcolm Trophy, will contest the 1 p.m. curtain-raisers, while the seniors will do battle in the 3 p.m. feature games. The Westmoreland-St James games will be played at the Frome Sports Ground, while the Hanover versus Trelawny match-up will be at the Watson Taylor Park in Lucea.

10-year absence

The competition, which heralds the return of inter-parish football in western Jamaica after a near 10-year absence, is designed to unearth and expose new talent as well as end the acrimonious relationship between the parishes which many blame for the decline in the region's football.

"The time has come for us to unite as a football family as we seek to take the game back to a position of prominence in the region," confederation chairman Orville Powell said at the competition's launch on Wednesday. "We are committed to rebuilding football in the west and we consider this competition as an important component in this task."

preliminary stages

According to the competition's format, the teams will play against each other twice on a home-and-away basis in the preliminary stage. At the completion of the initial fixture, the two top teams in the respective competitions will advance to the final. While no prizemoney is at stake, each parish will receive $100,000.

In hailing the vision behind the staging of the two competitions, Dale Spencer, the president of the Manchester Football Association and first vice president of the Jamaica Football Federation, said he hoped the competitions would help to return western Jamaica to its rightful place in national football as "when the west is strong, Jamaica is strong".

Under the rules governing the two competitions, players who were born in the west are obligated to represent their home parish, while players who were born outside the region need to have been residing in a parish for a minimum of five years to be eligible to represent that team.

Each senior team is obligated to field at least five Under-23 players to satisfy the development component of the competition.