The Turks and Caicos Islands will be among the 41 playing countries to take part in the 2022/23 CONCACAF Nations League (CNL).
The competition’s group stage matches, featuring the men’s national teams of all member Associations, is scheduled to take place during the FIFA Match Windows of June 2022 and March 2023.
The Concacaf Nations League Finals presented by Qatar Airways, between the four League A group winners, will be played in June 2023.
Dane Richie, Technical Director for the Turks and Caicos Islands football programme told NewslineTCI that the team is already in advance training in preparation for the tournament.
He believes that the local boys will give a much better account of themselves at the CNL than in the World Cup qualifiers, because at the CNL level they would be playing against teams almost on similar levels, as opposed to the World Cup, where they would go up against perennial campaigners.
The official draw for the 2022/23 CNL, which will sub-divide Leagues A, B and C into groups, will take place on Monday, April 4, in Miami, FL.
The 2022/23 CNL group stage will continue to be played in a three League format (League A, League B and League C), with home and away round robin play on the FIFA Match Windows of June 2022 (double window) and March 2023.
The distribution of the teams for each league has been determined based on the results of the 2019 CNL group stage, including a promotion and relegation system (bottom team in each group relegated and top team in each group promoted).
Based on the 2019 results, the 41 Concacaf Member Associations will be distributed in the three Leagues as follows (teams listed in alphabetical order per league):
League A (12 teams): Canada, Costa Rica, Curaçao, El Salvador (promoted), Grenada (promoted), Honduras, Jamaica (promoted), Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Suriname (promoted) and United States.
League B (16 teams): Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas (promoted), Barbados (promoted), Belize, Bermuda (relegated), Cuba (relegated), Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Guadeloupe (promoted), Guatemala (promoted), Guyana, Haiti (relegated), Montserrat, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago (relegated).
League C (13 teams): Anguilla, Aruba (relegated), Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica (relegated), Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis (relegated), Saint Lucia (relegated), Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands.
Additionally, the 2022/23 CNL group stage will continue to serve as the qualifier for the Concacaf Gold Cup.
Concacaf launched the region’s men’s Nations League in March 2018, with the aim of ensuring all Member Associations have the opportunity to compete in more official matches, driving the development of the game and providing a compelling tournament for fans in all parts of the Confederation.