Western Bureau:

So, Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) boss, Captain Horace Burrell, has kept his word that once the west gave substantial spectator support to the recent CONCACAF Under-17 Championship, which was staged in Montego Bay, he would reward the region with more international football.

Come next Friday night, Jamaica's senior Reggae Boyz will be playing host to their Venezuelan counterparts at the Montego Bay stadium in Catherine Hall, and based on the buzz I have been hearing across the region, the newly built 7,500-seat stadium might not be able to adequately seat all the fans who might want to see the game.

The above scenario is unfortunate, as while Burrell and the JFF are seemingly quite impressed with the attitude displayed by western fans for the recent CONCACAF Championship, the limited seating at the Catherine Hall facility seems poised to undermine its capacity to attract the proverbial 'big games', which are likely to attract a large crowd.

As I have been saying in this column for many years, I believe the west was seriously short-changed when the Urban Development Corporation, which constructed the Catherine Hall facility, altered the original plan, which was to construct a 20,000-seater stadium and opted for a 7,500-seater alternative.

During the games featuring Jamaica in the recent CONCACAF Championship, scores of fans, who turned up at the Catherine Hall facility, did not get a chance to enter the stadium because they were just not enough seats to accommodate all of them.

appeal

Like Burrell, I too would like to make an appeal to the government to seriously consider adding the seats that the UDC left off when the plan for the Catherine Hall Stadium was modified. There is still enough space there to accommodate the missing 11,500 seats, which would make the stadium adequate.

If the government is serious about making the west the hub for its plan to develop a major sports tourism programme, then good sense would dictate that the region should have at least one good stadium capable of hosting a major international event.

Come next month, the Catherine Hall facility will be hosting the 2011 Carifta Games, and already, one of the concerns is whether or not the stadium will be able to adequately seat the athletes, officials and fans from the 26 nations, who will be descending on Montego Bay for the three-day championship.

Based on the fact that the Carifta Games will be the first international track meet to be hosted by Montego Bay, I am expecting that track and field fans will be turning out in large numbers to be a part of this experience. In fact, I strongly suspect that like at the CONCACAF football tournament, fans might be turned away because of the limited seating.

To his credit president of the North America, Central America and Caribbean Athletics Association, Neville 'Teddy' McCook, who is the head honcho for the Carifta Games, is now putting contingency plans in place to bring in temporary seating should the need arise.

I do hope that now that the recent CONCACAF tournament has shown that the Montego Bay stadium is inadequate in terms of its size, and football stakeholders here in the west will join me in lobbying the government to transform the stadium from its current state into a proper stadium.

Feel free to send your feedback to adrianfrater@hotmail.com