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 ...

– commonly known as football (or soccer in the United States and Canada) – is a popular sport in

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...

. The

Cayman Islands Football Association The Cayman Islands Football Association is the governing body of football in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands Football Association governs all National Team programs, youth development leagues, Women's league and the Cayman Islands Men's Pr ...

– the territory's football governing body – organizes the Men's and

Women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

national teams and administers the territory's professional league the

Cayman Islands League The Cayman Islands League is the top association football league in the Cayman Islands and was created in 1980. Despite being a league competition in CONCACAF since 1992, no team participated in the CFU Club Championship until the 2010 CFU Club ...

. As members of

Caribbean Football Union The Caribbean Football Union (CFU) is the representative organization for football associations in the Caribbean. It represents 25 FIFA member nations, as well as 6 territories that are not affiliated to FIFA. The Union was established in Januar ...

teams are eligible for the

Caribbean Club Championship The Caribbean Club Championship, also known as the CFU Club Championship or CFU Club Champions' Cup, was an annual international football competition held amongst association football clubs that are members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU). T ...

and the territory's membership in

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 ...

allows teams to participate in that organizations club and national team competitions. The Cayman Islands are also a member of

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 ...

and is therefore eligible to play in the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

History

Modern football in the Cayman Islands is generally attributed to the efforts of local school teacher, and later principal, Timothy McField in the late 50s and early 1960s. With the help of a road builder named Mike Simmons, the two constructed the islands first competitive pitch, known originally as the Annex, from swamp land near the school in George Town. The field played host to Jamaica the day after it was completed. The territory's football governing body, the

, was founded in 1966 and became an associate member of CONCACAF in 1988, gaining full membership in 1990. The national team made its CONCACAF debut in the

1991 Caribbean Cup The 1991 Caribbean Cup (known as the Shell Caribbean Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the third edition of the Caribbean Cup, the football championship of the Caribbean, one of the CONCACAF zones. The final round of the competition was held from th ...

. The territory joined FIFA in 1992 and played their first

qualifying match at home against

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

on 11 November 1996, losing 0–1.

FIFA corruption case

Jeffrey Webb, Former president of

(CIFA), and

vice president, was arrested for corruption charges on 27 May 2015 by

Swiss police Law enforcement in Switzerland is mainly a responsibility of the 26 cantons of Switzerland, who each operate cantonal police agencies. Some cities also operate municipal police agencies as provided for by cantonal law. The federal government p ...

acting at the request of the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

on charges of

racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to fraud, defraud another, and are Federal crime in the United States, federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the ...

and

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

conspiracy. In May 2015, he was banned by

FIFA Ethics Committee The FIFA Ethics Committee is one of FIFA's three judicial bodies. It is organized in two chambers, the ''Investigatory Chamber'' and the ''Adjudicatory Chamber''. Its duties are regulated by several official documents, most importantly the ''FIF ...

. After originally pleading not guilty to the charges, he pleaded guilty in November 2015.

League system

Professional football in the Cayman Islands is organized by the national federation and currently consists of two leagues. The

Cayman Islands Premier League The Cayman Islands League is the top association football league in the Cayman Islands and was created in 1980. Despite being a league competition in CONCACAF since 1992, no team participated in the CFU Club Championship until the 2010 CFU Clu ...

has been the highest level of football in the territory since it was first organized for the 1970–1971 season with the Cayman Islands Division One comprising the second tier. The system has a hierarchical format with

promotion and relegation 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. ...

between the leagues.

References

{{League systems