Harbour View promoting youths for more than 40 years – Jureidini

For the upcoming Jamaica Premier League (JPL) season, young players will dominate Harbour View Football Club's roster, after 20 of the 30 players the club registered are under 20 years old.

However, following the revelation by the club earlier this week, many have suggested that the Stars of the East are following the footsteps of Cavalier, who have been hugely successful with this model both domestically and in the international transfer market in recent years.

But Harbour View general manager, Clyde Jureidini, was quick to point out that Harbour View was not copying the Cavalier model as they have been promoting youths through the ranks and this has been their tradition for more than 40 years.

"Cavalier just learn about this in the last few years when they were relegated (from Premier League in 2016) with old players" Jureidini told STAR Sports.

"But we don't follow Cavalier, never have. Harbour View, from I was playing in 1976, won the league with eight out of the 16 players, including myself being under 19 years old.

"So that has always been the Harbour View model, we develop from within and promote up to our senior team.

Gained success

"This has been the Harbour View model for 45 years. Cavalier just started that in the last two or three years and we congratulate them but we are doing what Harbour View has always done and gained success," he reasoned.

Cavalier has made the playoffs in two of the three seasons since they returned to the league in 2017, with largely a youthful squad.

Last season, both teams were tied on 39 points, in eighth and ninth, respectively, four points off a play-off spot, with four games to go when the league was cancelled.

However, since last winning the league in 2013, Harbour View has qualified for the playoffs only twice but Jureidini insisted winning the league is not their main objective these days.

"It is not about getting back to the top of the local Premier League or winning the local Premier League. What is more important and what we have focused on for the last five years is developing our youngsters to international standards.

"We are exposing young teenage talent to international football and had we kept all our players of standard in the last five years, we would have won Premier League over and over again.

"So we have sacrificed winning Premier League for the greater good for these players and for our club to get these youngsters into international competition at a young age, so it is not necessarily to win the Premier League," he insists.