Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West Sean Sobers will kick off his com­mu­ni­ty foot­ball event to­day at Na­pari­ma Col­lege Grounds in San Fer­nan­do. Sobers, how­ev­er, as­sured that prop­er pro­to­cols in keep­ing with the Min­istry of Health guide­lines will be en­forced.

This fol­lows op­pos­ing views by Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith on sport­ing events for youth. Grif­fith dis­agreed with Paras­ram's ad­vice that such events could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact the Gov­ern­ment's ef­forts to curb the spread of COVID-19. Grif­fith said he has not re­ceived any pol­i­cy from any gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial to stop young peo­ple from tak­ing part in sports.

Af­ter be­ing boxed in at home for so long, Grif­fith said young peo­ple were like­ly to be­come frus­trat­ed and "hence their en­er­gies can very well be di­vert­ed in non-pro­duc­tive, if not crim­i­nal av­enues."

Dur­ing a walk­a­bout in the Bel Air area, Sobers said the first-ever San Fer­nan­do West Street Jam will kick off to­day. Once suc­cess­ful at the Au­gust 10 polls, Sobers in­tends to host the event an­nu­al­ly. He said the con­cept came from the com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Train Line area, and it is aimed at bring­ing com­mu­ni­ties with­in the con­stituen­cy to­geth­er.

"So it is foot­ball be­ing played against sev­er­al dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties with one win­ner be­ing crowned af­ter sev­er­al games be­ing played. To­mor­row's event will be the San Fer­nan­do West All­stars which is a team made up from sev­er­al youths through­out the com­mu­ni­ty go­ing up against the T&T Crick­et Team (in a foot­ball com­pe­ti­tion) cap­tained by Dwayne Bra­vo who will be play­ing on the side. It is go­ing to be a very fun event. We are invit­ing every­one to come down and have a time."

He as­sured that COVID-19 guide­lines and pro­to­cols will be en­forced.

"We are hav­ing mea­sures in place to treat with the Min­istry of Health's pro­to­cols and guide­lines, so it will be a very safe event."