 As the kickoff of the semi-professional football league in St. Lucia gets closer, the organisers celebrate conference at the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports Friday to make further announcements on the start of the league, set for March 10th, 2024. Francis Daniel, the league's chief executive officer, provided details ahead of the competition. I spoke to the tournament format, it's going to be 10 and 9 respectively, and it's going to be in a league format with a playoff, okay? So we're talking about 49 and 40 games over a six-month period in tier one and tier two. Price money, I know y'all want to know about that. Basically we're looking at 25, 59 and five for now. That's what's in the budget. But we're hoping with your cooperation in terms of popularising the sport, raising confidence, public confidence in what we do, we'll be able to learn some serious sponsorship, and like everything else, that will redone to the tournament and the participants in this tournament. The President of the Senegal Football Association, Lyndon Cooper, expressed optimism that the new league will boost the quality of football on island. I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the Senegal Football Association and myself personally to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to the Ministry of Responsibility for Sports by Extension, the Government of Senegal by seeing the importance in trying to assist the SLFA achieve its overall objective. We occupy note that this country is going to benefit in the next three years football and all the key partners are going to be the beneficiaries in this project. So once again, I just want to thank you for being there and on behalf of the SLFA, we are grateful to be part and parcel of this project. Minister responsible for youth development and sports, the Honourable Kenson Kazumi, reiterated the intention of the league to transform lives and noted that it will not merely be a means of providing income for young men playing football. You see, the vision is not just to compensate young men for kicking a ball and scoring goals, it is to transform their lives and so through the assistance of the time on this Government and through the collaboration and the Ministry of Education and NSDC, we will be having a program instituted for them that will allow them to go beyond football and get certification in whatever skill, whatever other skill they have, be it plumbing, be it carpentry, be it bartending, but the opportunity will be there for them to get certification under the Semi-Pro Football League. We also will be instituting programs on conflict resolution. We know some of the issues we have in our communities and so the young men will be part of those programs throughout the season and the off season. We will also be instituting a fatherhood program because when you dig deep into what's happening in our society, we see that a lot of the families that are affected, a lot of the deviant behaviour that we experience comes from the lack of a proper father in a household. The league's March 10th opening double header at the Mindofile Park will see Marsha taking on Babuno at 2 p.m. followed by an encounter between Grozile and Lecleri. From the Ministry of Development and Sports, I'm Ryan O'Brien.