boost their chances of succeeding on the international stage, according to one of the sport's most senior administrators.

Jon Beard, chairman of Bermuda Football Association's coaching committee, believes the local game is vastly under-funded.

And although he accepts there are other areas that are just as or more deserving than football, he believes ploughing money into the game could benefit society as a whole.

"At the moment there are no sponsors on board for the national team -- that is the bottom line,'' he said.

"Our grant from Government doesn't cover national teams, it doesn't for anybody to be fair to the Government. You have to raise your money for that.'' Beard said he didn't believe this was the correct stance to take.

"It's Government policy but I'd like to see it changed,'' he said.

"For me if football is an important part of Bermuda, and if it can really benefit the community, and I believe it can, then it must deserve to have more money put into it.

"I guess the arguement is `well there's only so much' and therefore do you take it out of education, do you take it out of health? I understand the problems behind it, but it doesn't solve what we within the executive and particularly within the coaching side are trying to do.'' Beard said the BFA had plenty of ideas they wanted to implement, but all of them were dependent on funding.

He said the association wanted to: Improve the programme of matches in which the national team were involved, so they trained and played regularly and players had goals to aim for.

Employ a body of well-qualified coaches to run the Island's youth national teams.

Bring in a technical director to oversee the operation.

Develop young players, not just from a football perspective but from a life-skills perspective.

Singling out the last point, he said: "If you can use football for that then it has to be important to Bermuda and therefore hopefully things can move from there.''