Jamir Claxton, director of Sports on Nevis and Manager of the St.Kitts-Nevis under 20 Football team, recently returned home, after touring with the federation’s youth team.
In giving a report on his stewardship, Claxton pointed out that he has been managing the SKN under 20 and under 23 teams since 2014.
He opined that he was selected to the coveted position due to his skill set, qualification and education.
The SKN under 20 team recently took part in the under 20 world cup qualifiers which featured such teams as the Dominican Republic; Dominica and Jamaica. The SKN team won over Jamaica for the first time at any level, beating them with a scoreline of 2 goals to nil and effectively eliminating that team from the tournament.
The SKN team then went off to Curacao where they participated in the finals of the Caribbean qualifiers which featured eight teams from across the Caribbean
The federation team finished in 5th position which qualified them for CONCACAF finals which will be held in Costa Rica next year, when they will engage powerful teams such as Mexico; USA; Costa Rica; Guatemala and Canada.
He noted that the federation team has not qualified for CONCACAF for the last ten years and stated that it was indeed a great achievement.
He thanked the SKNFA and the SKNOC for their support of the team and for giving him the opportunity to manage the team.
Claxton noted that his role as manager is very challenging as it involves a lot of regular documentation and dealing with player issues and attitudes. However, he stated that he has the respect of the players and so that helps to make his job a lot easier.
There are no current players on the team from Nevis and he pointed out that the higher the level the team progresses to, requires the management team leaning on assistance from the overseas based players because of their superior skill set.
