Former Bermuda football captain Danté Leverock has said that he is thankful for the opportunities afforded to him by Robin Hood but felt he had no option other than to leave the club as head coach this week.

Hood have forfeited their past two matches since losing 11-1 to St George’s in the Premier Division at the end of last month, with one further no-show this season resulting in them being banned from all competitions, and Leverock feels he needed to move on for the sake of his career.

“It was time for a new challenge,” Leverock said. “I will always be grateful to the club for giving me the opportunity in the first place because I’m a young coach taking my first steps into management and they really did try to support me.

“Obviously, everyone knows what the club are going through and, unfortunately, it just isn’t in a good place at the moment. The structure within the club is a big issue and this season we’ve just had such limited numbers for matches due to some unfortunate injuries, but also a large number of players going off island to school.”

Leverock, 30, is now studying for his Uefa B coaching licence and has already completed his Bermuda B Talent ID, working towards Scouting Licence level B and his sporting director certification, but feels the situation at Hood was not conducive to his career trajectory.

“I’m trying to do my coaching certificates, and the environment at the club just wasn’t the right place to do what I needed,” Leverock said. “I made it very clear at the beginning of the season what I needed to accomplish what I thought we could and, unfortunately, due to a series of different circumstances, we couldn’t do that.

“They knew clearly what my aims and ambitions are within the game, and unfortunately I couldn’t work towards them within an environment like that.

“The club tried hard to rectify issues but, there is only so much you can do. With the model that has been used at the club, sadly, this situation was inevitable. Worryingly, it is the same for a lot of the clubs on island.

“Obviously, you want players to go overseas and experience that, but we have a massive issue on island of having enough players here to regularly fill those voids.

With most of his football played overseas in recent years, Leverock has been surprised by the structures in place at certain clubs.

“I’ve played the majority of my football away and so I never really knew how it was here in terms of club structures,” Leverock said. “This is the first time I’ve experienced it and, honestly, the tools aren’t in place to be able to flourish here and keep players on island.

“I’m not sure what the immediate future of Robin Hood will be but, unfortunately, they are suffering for a series of events and it’s steadily got worse. The signs were there in the summer. Anyone who knows me will tell you how committed I am as a person, and I took my role incredibly seriously. I gave my thoughts on the structure at the time, but things couldn’t be fixed. The plan was always to have a mixture of youth and senior players, but that mix was not there.

“I hope the club will be able to continue and I’m confident that they will, but they need to work out a different model and revamp the structure in place.

“I believe they will be fine because they have a core of people who care deeply about the club and they will have players returning soon from injury, but I hope it doesn’t come to the club having to fold. It would be a major blow not only to Hood but the league as a whole. It’s already happened to too many clubs already, so something needs to be done going forward.”

Leverock has played for Robin Hood on a number of occasions and is calling on the Bermuda Football Association to revisit its rules surrounding players being limited to just one club per season.

“The most unfortunate thing is that if the worst was to happen, then those players who have featured for the first team won’t be able to play elsewhere for the rest of the season,” Leverock said.

“The entire Bermuda football fraternity needs to come together and look at how we best revamp the rules and regulations regarding player registration when clubs are struggling. Not only will it affect the development of young players who will not be able to play for the next five to six months, which is vital for them, but also someone like myself.

“I now can’t play anywhere else and I’m due to be involved with the national team early next year. How can I prepare properly to represent the country when I now can’t play? It is definitely something that needs to be thought about.”