CATHERINE HALL, St James — There could be a new, more player-friendly format for the next staging of the Caribbean Football Union’s Men’s Caribbean Cup in two years’ time, according to president of the CFU Gordon Derrick.

The format that saw four of the eight teams in the tournament hosted by Jamaica at the Montego Bay Sports Complex playing four gruelling games over an eight-day period has been widely criticised by players.

Derrick said changes have been considered but it will take time and asked for understanding and patience.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer after Tuesday’s final in which Jamaica beat Trinidad and Tobago 4-3 on penalty kicks in front of a capacity crowd at Montego Bay Sports Complex, Derrick said: “Yes it’s tough, but let us look at it and let’s see how we can tweak it and maybe we can come up with a different format which would be less taxing.”

He said, however, one must not lose sight of the progress made. “We are going to do that (look at the format again) but let’s not be too ungrateful; it’s the first time we are playing in the FIFA dates. Having done it now, the format has always been the same for 16 years, we have had the same format without the FIFA dates,” explained the Antiguan.

Jamaica, who came into the competition on the second day, played their four games — three in Group B and the final in a seven-day period — while Trinidad, who started a day earlier, had to play theirs over eight days. Additionally, Trinidad, who completed their group play on Saturday, had an extra day to rest, while Jamaica who played on Sunday had just Monday to rest for the final.

Derrick, who replaced Jack Warner as president of the CFU two years ago, said the event was successfully staged. “We got all the guidelines that we wanted to accomplish and things went exceptionally well and we can’t argue at all.”

While admitting he did not want to get drawn into giving any grades on the tournament, Derrick said, “I am a hard marker.” But he conceded that he was “pleasantly surprised”.

“It’s not what I think, but what the people think, so I will await the feedback,” Derrick noted.

Derrick described the final between two of the Caribbean’s top countries as “exceptional”.

“We had a full house, we had the two most storied programmes in the Caribbean playing, we had penalty kicks to determine it. You couldn’t want a more fitting ending,” he concluded.

— Paul Reid