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Lumumba calls for discipline as Alpha focuses on CFU Club C/Ship

Feb 13, 2011 Sports

President of the Alpha Football Club, Odinga Lumumba, has made a stern call on his players to employ a more disciplined approach to the game and their general conduct.
In a no holds barred meeting, Lumumba made the clubs policy clear to the players assembled and also hinted at the management of the club’s stance to the media representatives invited after the meeting.
He was addressing the issue of their participation in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Championship.  This is the third year Alpha, the leading local club, is participating in the prestigious regional event.
It was disclosed that the Antigua club scheduled to compete in this leg of the tournament, has pulled out, which resulted in Alpha drawing a bye to the next round.  The club boss is confident his team will advance to the finals of the tournament this time round.
In his disclosures to the media, Lumumba stated that they have been trying to put the missing pieces together after evaluating their performance in the last CFU tournament and recent local encounters.  Among those missing links noted were – lack of quality players, adequate time to prepare and lack of discipline among the players.
He informed that they have included several key players in their ranks of recent and are working on making full use of the time available to prepare.  The very outspoken Lumumba said the players were too spoilt and they would be enforcing the rules to ensure the team performs at its optimum level.
The Alpha boss called on the players to understand the importance of representing their country, team and self, noting that they can’t expect support from the sponsors, government and fans and not give a proper representation.
The strong stance taken by the club’s management will see them taking stern action against players who are late or miss training sessions and other engagements.  Fines are also on the cards for breaches of the rules.  Even at yesterday’s meeting, which took place at the Water Chris Hotel, a $5,000 fine was the penalty for anyone missing.  However, all the players except one, who had made a request to be absent and was permitted, were present.
He called for more recognition of the club in the media, highlighting their impressive performance locally over the last five years.  However, Lumumba stated that while they were dominant on the local scene, for Alpha to truly say they are the best, the club must dominate at the regional level first.  This is the direction for the club he pointed out.
In order to achieve this, the club president informed that more sponsorship support is needed.  While informing that Alpha enjoy support and he also chips in along the way to ensure things go well, to achieve the desired results, much more sponsorship dollars are needed.He mentioned that this CFU championship is a financial burden to clubs in the region and he will write to CONCACAF Boss Jack Warner and FIFA to state his case and look at ways they can assist.   The home and away fixtures force clubs to dole out sizeable sums to facilitate travel and other attached costs. When questioned, Lumumba noted that it will take between $6 to 7M to cover costs of their participation in the event.
Alpha is still pursuing its plan to host an inter club championship. The event has however, been pushed back to mid year due to their and other teams involvement in the regional championship.  Several clubs have already confirmed their participation.

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