Men's football leagues

The professional first-division league in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

is the

TT Pro League The TT Pro League (formerly known as the Professional Football League) is the Trinidad and Tobago professional league for association football clubs. It is the country's primary football competition and serves as the top division in the Trinidad ...

, which consists of nine teams located on the island of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. The Pro League was formed in 1999 as part of a need for a

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

league to strengthen the country's

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

and improve the development of domestic players. The most successful club in the league has been Defence Force, who has won the league championship 22 times. The

National Super League The National Super League is a league for semi-professional association football clubs in Trinidad and Tobago. It is the second-highest division of the Trinidad and Tobago football league system. The league currently comprises 19 teams between 2 l ...

is the

semi-professional Semi-professional sports are sports in which athletes are not participating on a full-time basis, but still receive some payment. Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team, but generally at a consid ...

second-division league in Trinidad and Tobago and contains 12 teams. The Super League was founded in 2003 to allow the best teams from association football to play in a semi-professional environment, as they prepare for life in the professional game. The amateur third and fourth divisions of six regional football associations which govern their own first and second divisions. The

Trinidad and Tobago Football Association The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) is the governing body of football in Trinidad and Tobago. It is based in Port of Spain, Trinidad. It is a member of FIFA and is responsible for governing amateur and professional football and ...

sanctions regional tournaments that allow entry into the

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The compet ...

, which is the premier knockout tournament for teams in Trinidad and Tobago. The competition is open to all those affiliated with the FA. The FA Trophy is the oldest football competition in Trinidad and Tobago, dating back to 1927 and pits teams from the top three levels of the

football pyramid In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

against each other each year, similar to England's

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

International competitions

are members of

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typese ...

, which governs

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago are also members of the Caribbean Football Union and compete in regional competitions staged by the governing body. At the club level, CFU organises an annual competition, called the CFU Club Championship, open to the champions of each Caribbean's football association first-division. Presently, the

has two automatic qualification places given to the top 2 teams in the league standings following each season. The league champion is automatically seeded and enter the competition in the Second Round, whereas the league runner-up enter in the First Round. As of the 2012–13 CONCACAF Champions League, Caribbean qualifying teams include the top three clubs from the 2012 CFU Club Championship. In the case any Caribbean club is precluded, it is supplanted by the fourth-place finisher from the CFU Club Championship. Between 2008–09 and 2011–12, the Champions League was played as a twenty-four team tournament with a preliminary round, followed by a sixteen-team group stage (four groups of four), followed by an eight-team home-and-away single-elimination tournament. In early 2012,

announced a new format for the 2012–13 edition of its Champions League. Under the new format, the preliminary round would be eliminated, and group play would consist of eight groups of three teams each, with each group winner advancing to the quarterfinals.

Trinidadians playing in foreign leagues

Since the early 1990s, many

men have found opportunities playing football at the highest levels of foreign leagues. Among the first players from Trinidad and Tobago to become regulars in foreign leagues were

Dwight Yorke Dwight Eversley Yorke CM (born 3 November 1971) is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian former professional footballer and current manager of Australian A-League club Macarthur FC. Throughout his club career, he played for Aston Villa, Manchester Uni ...

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

and later Manchester United in England,

Leonson Lewis Leonson Edward Jeffrey Lewis (born 30 December 1966 in Port of Spain) is a Trinidad and Tobago retired footballer who played as a striker. External links * * *Trinidad and Tobago – Record International Players at RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer ...

at Académica de Coimbra in Portugal, and Brian Haynes at

FC Dallas FC Dallas is an American professional soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise began play in 1996 as a charter club of the le ...

in the United States. The following is a list of Trinidadians playing in foreign leagues:

National teams

The Trinidad and Tobago men's and women's national soccer teams represent

in international competition. The men's national team competes in the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

and the

FIFA Confederations Cup The FIFA Confederations Cup was an international association football tournament for men's national teams, held every four years by FIFA. It was contested by the holders of each of the six continental championships ( AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, ...

, in addition to the CFU Caribbean Cup,

CONCACAF Gold Cup The CONCACAF Gold Cup ( es, Copa de Oro de la CONCACAF, french: Coupe D'or CONCACAF) is the main association football competition of the men's national football teams governed by CONCACAF, determining the continental champion of North Ameri ...

and other competitions by invitation. The women's national team competes in the FIFA Women's World Cup, and the

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

, in addition to the

CONCACAF Women's Championship The CONCACAF W Championship (previously known as the CONCACAF Women's Championship, CONCACAF Women's Invitational Tournament, CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup and CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying) is a football competition organized by the Confede ...

and other competitions by invitation. In recent years, the men's national team have been the most successful in the Caribbean, having qualified for the only

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Germany 2006, was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host the ...

and have won the CFU's

Caribbean Cup The Caribbean Cup was the championship tournament for national association football teams that are members of the Caribbean Football Union. The first competition, established by Shell and run by former England Cricket fast bowler Fred Rumsey, wa ...

8 times since it was founded in 1990. By claiming the Caribbean Cup in 1989,

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, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2001, Trinidad and Tobago have qualified for the

more than any other Caribbean nation. Though the national team have never claimed the Gold Cup title, their best finish came in the 1973 CONCACAF Championship when they finished runners-up to

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

. The Trinidad and Tobago women's national team competed in their first international match in 1991 with a 3-1 victory over

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The women's team have yet to qualify for the FIFA Women's World Cup with their best performance in the

coming in the

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

when they finished in third place. In addition to the

, the island of

Tobago Tobago () is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger island of Trini ...

also has an official football team that represents the island. The team is not affiliated with

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

, nor the CFU and as a result may not enter any of the organisation's football competitions.

References

External links