St. Kitts and Nevis Football Association (SKNFA) and La Liga club Cádiz C.F. announced a partnership on Thursday, that will see young players from St. Kitts and Nevis getting professional and developmental opportunities at the club. The announcement was made at a brief press conference Thursday, which was broadcast live on St. Kitts and Nevis’s Facebook page from the Royal St. Kitts Hotel Conference Room. President of the SKNFA Atiba Harris and International Director of Football at Cádiz C.F., Enrique Martinez Perez, signed the agreement at the press conference. Also present at the signing was the 1st Vice President of the SKNFA Sean White, who is also the head of the SKNFA Marketing Committee.
Mr. Harris said this opportunity will not only be limited to youth male players but females as well. He said this development is significant in providing opportunities for local players, who desire to pursue a professional pathway in football. “I think the dream for many of our players is to go to college or become professional footballers, so to formulate this agreement with Cadiz Football Club, a La Liga Club…it’s a realistic opportunity for our young players to have a realistic, standardized pathway to chase their dreams and become the next professional footballer or the many professional footballers in years to come,” Mr. Harris said. This he said would help to raise the standard of football in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Meanwhile, Mr. Martinez-Perez explained that this agreement will bring players from St. Kitts and Nevis to Cadiz, to give them a professional opportunity. “We will try to develop the talent we have here and they will have the opportunity in our club Cadiz to develop all their skills,” Martinez-Perez said. Incidentally, Cadiz was the first professional club that Atiba Harris played for when he was just 18 years old. “Cadiz happened to be my first professional club. When I was 18 years old, I left the Federation to embark on a journey and today 19 years later, we have an agreement that we are about to formulate with Cádiz Football Club and the SKNFA to make a standardized pathway for our youth players, to have a professional career possible,” Harris said.
Cádiz (Cádiz Club de Fútbol, S.A.D.), is a Spanish professional football club based in Cádiz, Andalusia. Founded in 1910, the club competes in the La Liga, the Spanish top-flight league and holds home games at Nuevo Mirandilla, with a seating capacity of over 20,000.