Mount Pleasant Football Academy’s ace striker Trivante Stewart has signed a three-year contract with Italian Serie A team US Salernitana 1919, the St Ann-based Jamaica Premier League champions have announced.
The deal gives the player the option of an additional two years at the end of his initial contract.
The 23-year-old Stewart became the first Jamaica Premier League player to sign for a top-flight Italian football club after completing his medical and agreeing to personal terms on August 16.
He joined Mount Pleasant Football Academy midway the 2021-22 Jamaica Premier League season and was the second highest goalscorer in the 2022-23 season with 18 goals which helped the St Ann club to claim its first Jamaica National Premier League title with victory over Cavalier Football Club in the final earlier this summer.
Stewart has three National caps, having made his debut against Cameroon in Yaounde in 2022 in a game which ended 1-1.
He also played for the Reggae Boyz in a goalless draw at the National Stadium earlier this year in a friendly international against Trinidad and Tobago, and also in a Nations League contest in a 2-2 result against Mexico in the Azteca.
At his presentation in Italy earlier this week, Stewart said: “It is a very great feeling… something I work so very hard for… I know the Serie A League is a very rough league. I expect a lot, for me I know the best is yet to come.”
The Peter Goud-owned club wished Stewart more success on his career path and congratulated him on this major achievement.
Gould, an Englishman, spearheaded the establishment of the Mount Pleasant Football Academy in 2016 after falling in love with the ST Ann-based community.
Two years later he opened a state-of-the-art football facility, one he hopes will develop and nurture the talent of some of the country’s young football prospects.
Mount Pleasant Football Academy, formerly known as Stush on the Bush, earned promotion to Jamaica’s top flight league in 2018 and won its first national title under the technical guidance of former Reggae Boyz head coach Theodore Whitmore, in his first season at the helm.
Salernitana finished in 15th place with 42 points in the Serie A last term after returning to the Italian topflight in 2021 after a 23-year hiatus.
