There will be an increased police presence at all Premier League football matches being played outside of the Wildey AstroTurf.
The assurance has been given by president of the Barbados Football Association (BFA), Randy Harris, after some Premier League teams raised concerns about a lack of security at the open grounds where games were being held.
Premier League matches are primarily held at the AstroTurf, but issues with a faulty generator at the venue has forced the BFA to reschedule its fixtures for the 2024 season, with the playing fields at Ellerton, Friendship, Greens, Passage Road and Speightstown, among those being used.
However, management of at least seven of the 10 Premier League clubs recently met with officials at the BFA after fights broke out during games at Passage Road and Greens, where there was no police presence.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY on Tuesday, the BFA president said a decision had been taken to increase security at all grounds hosting Premier League matches.
“The BFA will put certain things in place. We didn’t have a police presence before but we have arranged with the Barbados Police Service to have police officers at all of the open grounds where Premier League football is being played in the future,” Harris said.
“The safety of our players and officials is of utmost importance and we will do whatever is necessary to protect them.”
Harris revealed that while the BFA was working assiduously to rectify the issue with the faulty generator at the AstroTurf, it was proving to be more challenging than initially expected.
He explained that because a large generator was needed to adequately power the lights at the facility, they were having issues sourcing one.
“I thought generators were like fridges where you could order them and they would come. However, we’ve come to realize that the ones we are looking for are like elevators and have to be made,” Harris said.
“We’ve been given different timelines from different sources, but in some cases we’ve been told that it will take up to six months…but we are getting some assistance with it.
“We rent generators from time to time that can power the lights so if we have an international game we will still have the capacity the play,” he added.
Harris said the absence of a generator and the move to use open grounds to host Premier League games were proving costly to the BFA.
He said they were losing gate receipts as they could not charge patrons to watch games at those venues.
“The generator is critical to us. At open grounds we don’t have opportunity to take gate receipts. The BFA is definitely going to lose some money and as far as safety and security is concerned it’s always better to play at Wildey,” Harris maintained.
The BFA president said despite the unavailability of the AstroTurf, he was “heartened” with the quality of football he had seen so far, especially the play of newly promoted Kickstart Rush and UWI Blackbirds.
The post Police to be present at Premier League football games being played at open grounds appeared first on Barbados Today.