AMIDST a spike in the Covid-19 virus patients on island the Saint Lucia Football Association [SLFA] has disclosed there will be a temporary halt to major league matches currently in progress.
SLFA General Secretary Victor Reid stated that affiliates will be notified as soon as matters have been clarified and there is a go ahead for the re- commencement of matches.
Due to some prevailing health concerns, the ministry of health had intensified their surveillance program by establishing a testing facility in the heart of an affected community, in the Mabouya Valley area.
Health officials confirmed that a member of the Mabouya Valley Senior Male Football Team had contracted the virus; and in keeping with established protocol it was necessary to test the entire team during an exercise that took place on October, 19 at the Grand Riviere Human Resource Centre.
Parliamentary Representative for Dennery North and Former Sports Minister Shawn Edward commended the Mabouya Valley Football League, the management of the Senior District Team and the players for acceding to the Health Ministry’s request for testing at short notice.
The respective league competitions have been gaining momentum, since the Covid-19 ‘lockdown period’ was lifted in July. Subsequently, in September, the SLFA put its match schedule in motion with commencement of the Youth Zonal Championships, which includes players in the U-11, U-13 and U-17 divisions.
Since then, the SLFA has gone on to field the Island Cup –Super League, and Premier League competitions amongst qualifying clubs and district representative teams.
In addition to last weekend’s matches being postponed, the SLFA this week further released a schedule of postponed matches for Tuesday and Wednesday.
The postponed matches were as follows:
Tuesday October, 27 – Super League –
Soufriere vs. Micoud
Laborie vs. Anse La Raye
Wednesday October, 28 – Premiere League –
Roseau Valley vs. Marchand
Canaries vs. Dennery
At the temporary halt, heading into the Island Cup Super League fifth round matches- La Clery had solidified its spot at the top of the points table.
In their last fixture on October, 15 in a rescheduled encounter, La Clery had to dig deep to get past Laborie 3-2 to continue an amazing undefeated run of play in the competition, so far.
An update of the points standing in the Super League competition from matches played so far is as follows:
Ø La Clery – 15 points
Ø Vieux Fort North – 9 points
Ø Micoud – 7 points
Ø National Under 17 – 6 points
Ø Laborie – 4 points
The leading goal scorers are Andrus Remy and Jonathan Aliene of La Clery and Keegan Caul of National Under 17 with five goals each; Carlton Daniel of Micoud with 4 goals and Rai Gaspard of Micoud and Dervaughn Charles of Anse La Raye with 3 goals each.