Plans for a new $800,000 national training facility have been given the green light with Bermuda Football Association putting pen to paper on a 50-year lease for Gym Field in Prospect.

But the BFA were strangely unwilling to comment yesterday on the FIFA-sponsored two-phase deal that will see a new synthetic pitch, upgraded lighting and fencing as well as the erection of a technical centre including classrooms and changing facilities.

General Secretary David Sabir, who co-signed the lease last Thursday with the Ministry of Works and Engineering to be paid at a nominal $1 annual rent, said the association were not willing to disclose any further details ?at least until the New Year? despite the fact that many of the details were revealed in the House of Assembly early on Saturday morning.

?I?m delighted that this has been sorted out and the BFA and Works and Engineering have sorted out the lease,? said Sports Minister Dale Butler, who has no quibbles about trumpeting the success of Government co-operation with sporting governing bodies.

?I?m happy that this is in place now.

?The FIFA Goal Project has been helping associations for some time now and I even saw it for myself when accompanying the national team to Montserrat during our World Cup campaign and saw what they had done there.

?We have taken our time in taking advantage of this project but I am pleased to see our association have taken the right action to secure the funding.

?The BFA have been barking at our feet to make some progress and that has been achieved now.

?I think it is important for our footballers to have this astro-turf facility so that the players can train all year round and take the sport to the next level.?

The national team have long struggled to find affordable training facilities for the senior and junior sides due to the costs of renting the National Sports Centre and there has been a groundswell of support for a purpose-built facility for the national sport, heightened in recent times by the $11 million given to cricket and the monumental success of the other national sport who currently share Cedar Avenue headquarters with the BFA.

Gym Field has been earmarked as the facility to upgrade for some time while the BFA sought a grant from the FIFA Goal Project, which has funded infrastructure development projects across the globe.

It appears that grant has now been ratified and plans are now in place to proceed.

Walter Lister made the announcement to the House of Assembly in the early hours of Saturday morning, revealing the details of the agreement whereby the BFA should be granted a 50-year tenure of the premises at Gymnasium Road, Prospect, in order to develop the ground.

Lister made mention of the plans having been approved by FIFA, and involving two separate $400,000 phases.

Earlier this year BFA Technical Committee chairman Jon Beard said plans to have all national teams train at Gym Field could come to fruition in the ?not too distant future?.

Those plans, he added, entailed having the venue?s present grass surface replaced with artificial turf to provide national team players with an even playing surface on which to train for international competition.

?It is a part of the FIFA Goal budget and if we can get that far then we won?t have to keep renting the National Sports Centre . . . but we are not there yet either,? Beard said in May.

?Our hope is that we will have Gym Field ready in the not to distant future because we would like to put our players on the best surface we can.?