New MoBay Utd bosses seek Catherine Hall move

THE WELL-MANICURED Wespow field has been home for the Montego Bay United Football Club for the past 12 years but yesterday, the organisation’s new owners indicated that they had eyes on the Catherine Hall Multipurpose Stadium as its next abode.

It was at the Wespow park yesterday that it was announced that long-standing owner of the club, Orville Powell, was calling time on his tenure and handing over the reigns to Yoni Epstein, chairman of Itel BPO, and Dr Germaine Spencer, owner of Baywest Wellness Clinic. Epstein is MoBay’s new chairman while Spencer now holds the office of president.

In Epstein’s first speech as chairman, he boldy declared having designs on the ownership of Catherine Hall.

“We believe, as it has been said, that a private entity that has the love of sport and the understanding of sport and business should be operating the Catherine Hall Multipurpose Stadium. We believe that as the premiere team in Montego Bay United and the connections and opportunities that we have, we should be the rightful custodians of the Catherine Hall Multipurpose Stadium,” said Epstein.

While not wanting to go into too much detail, Epstein still made it clear that he did not just believe that his club should be custodians, but that the organisation would be actively seeking to make it so.

“I am not going to get into the politics of the Catherine Hall Stadium, but I will state that we have our eyes on it and what is to be the home of the Montego Bay United football club. While Wespow Park is a first-class facility and one where we will start our matches, our aim as a team and organisation is we want to take over the Catherine Hall Stadium. That stadium has 7,000 seats. There is no reason that the stadium shouldn’t be full every 13 home matches that we have as a club as well as other international matches and other types of sports,” he said.

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

Spencer was in agreement and homed in on the many possibilities outside of the activities of a football club that are possible with his organisation managing Catherine Hall.

“Why is it that we can’t have a Racers [Track] Club at the Catherine Hall Stadium? If you look at the gene pool, again I go back to genes because I am in medicine, most of the successful athletes are from western Jamaica. Something must be here. Merlene Ottey, she is from Hanover. Veronica Campbell and Usain Bolt, they are from Trelawny. There must be something in this gene pool that we have to continue to tap into, foster, and to grow,” Spencer said.

The St James Municipal Corporation said that despite the claims of MBU’s new management, there had been no formal approach regarding such matters and, therefore, could not comment.

A move from Wespow Park to Catherine Hall aside, the club’s new management has already begun to chart a course for its return to supremacy.

That course, Spencer said, would involve a focus on youth development through an academy.

“A youth academy with an international flair, which we will be able to announce soon. We may have a parent international club in Europe that we want to pair up with Montego Bay United. We want to start from the under-7s, under-8s, under-9s, under-10s, and under-15s. That is what we want to focus on. One of the main reasons I got involved is to see the outreach in the communities. How can we take the at-risk youths off the streets and get them into a Montego Bay United jersey, a structured programme, so they can find a means of earning and feeding their families, whether they are doing it locally or internationally?”

FOCUS

Given a full scholarship by Jamaica College to study medicine and play football at university, Spencer’s focus is to have more youths like him.

“Football gave me an avenue where I could release a lot of my negative energy, create the opportunity to work in a structure with having a coaching staff with father figures. A lot of the at-risk youths’ study has shown that once you have a father figure, it will be able to curb their ability to go into the negative way. Football has power. There are no two ways about it. Communities like Salt Spring, Glendevon, Gully, Flankers, everywhere there are idle hands, we want to convert that into meaningful football,” said Spencer.

According to Epstein, going into the communities to develop the youth structure also provides the club with benefits.

“If you don’t instill that, then if you look at the next five to 10 years, Montego Bay United will be looking around Jamaica or outside of Jamaica for players. If we develop and give opportunities for the youth from now, we are going to be bringing people up from youth and transferring youth out and earning revenue for the club.”