The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTFF) has a new sec­re­tary.

Shel­don Phillips, son of for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er and tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sor Lin­coln Phillips, yes­ter­day took over from for­mer sec­re­tary Richard Gro­den, who va­cat­ed of­fice last week af­ter serv­ing since 1998.

TTFF pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the se­lec­tion of Phillips, which was al­so passed by the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee at a meet­ing on Wednes­day.

Phillips is re­port­ed to have strong foot­ball un­der­stand­ing and had a suc­cess­ful spell in sports man­age­ment in the Unit­ed States and oth­er parts of the globe. His role with the TTFF will in­clude man­ag­ing key ex­ter­nal re­la­tion­ships, par­tic­u­lar­ly with oth­er lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies as well as var­i­ous stake­hold­ers and part­ners.

Tim Kee said the fed­er­a­tion was im­pressed by the work Phillips did. "We are con­fi­dent that his ap­point­ment will pro­vide strong lead­er­ship and sta­bil­i­ty...

"I thought al­so with his le­gal back­ground and the lever­age he en­joys in get­ting things done on a glob­al stage would be a ma­jor as­set. You must be­gin with the end in mind and my end is get­ting T&T back to be­ing among the top na­tions in Con­ca­caf and to a high­ly re­spectable po­si­tion in world foot­ball. With those goals and ob­jec­tives in mind, I be­lieve Shel­don is the ide­al per­son to work along with me and the rest of the fed­er­a­tion in go­ing about achiev­ing all of this."

Phillips said he was ready to do every­thing in his pow­er to help lead the fed­er­a­tion back to sta­bil­i­ty. "Our or­gan­i­sa­tion will be zeal­ous in our ac­tivism and ad­vo­ca­cy of all things foot­ball-re­lat­ed be­cause we are keen­ly aware of the pow­er of the game and how it shapes lives both on and off the field of play. I am hum­bled at the op­por­tu­ni­ty."

Phillips was in­stru­men­tal in the set­tle­ment dis­cus­sions with the 2006 World Cup play­ers as well as the set­ting up of in­ter­na­tion­al match­es against Pe­ru, Be­lize, Ro­ma­nia and Es­to­nia.

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