Another product under the renowned ‘Kashif and Shanghai’ brand, ‘June Madness’ will be a sight to behold at the National Gymnasium and Cliff Anderson’s Sport Hall (CASH).
The brand-new Futsal tournament, with an entertaining twist, will run from June 3 to 28, with over $5M in cash and prizes up for grabs.
The very Homestretch Avenue venue was the location for the tournament’s launch on Saturday morning where Co- Director of the Kashif and Shanghai organisation, Kashif Muhammad shared the rationale behind the tournament and why organisers continue to invite Brazilian teams.
A look at the event’s draw, which also took place on Saturday
Muhammad shared, “The whole idea of this June Madness came up because we know that you youngsters are playing a lot of ball and we want to keep it nicely organised, give y’all an opportunity for a number of things, 1 stay healthy, 2 showcase your talents and 3 and everybody can make a little smile in this situation.”
“And that’s why we bring them, because we want our football to rise. We don’t want our football to stay at our level that we got here, then when we go somewhere else now, it’s new to us cause it higher than we. Our youngster going and play Futsal in Suriname, we does go and lose, Inter Guiana games even, we go and lose to Suriname, we don’t want that. So, we got to try to make the football better by brining a little better quality,” the Kashif and Shanghai Co- Director went on to reveal.
While June Madness is expected to go above an beyond in excitement with regard to Futsal tournaments; one new introduction to the game will see added tension, as explained by Franklin Wilson.
“One of the new features would be, we haven’t decided on the colour of the ball as yet, but within a two- minute period; four minutes after the game has started and four minutes before the game concludes, you will be able to request this ball and if you score, you get two goals. Any team could request it and once either team scores it would be two goals rather than one. Only one time you could request it,” Wilson excitedly disclosed.
The 48 teams in the June Madness competition will be competing for a $2M grand prize, with the second, third and fourth- place finishers pocketing $1M, $500,000 and $250,000 respectively. Further, individual accolades will attract a cash prize.
The tournament is being supported the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport and Ansa McAl.
