As­sis­tant di­rec­tor of women's foot­ball Ja­maal Shabazz has stepped down as head coach of the T&T se­nior women's na­tion­al team. Shabazz has been head coach of the T&T women's pro­gramme since 1998 and was re­spon­si­ble for send­ing some 25 fe­male play­ers on foot­ball schol­ar­ships in the Unit­ed States; along with help­ing to chart the ca­reers of stand out play­ers Maylee At­tin-John­son, Tasha St Louis, Ken­nya Cord­ner (YaYa) and sev­er­al oth­ers. Shabazz stat­ed: "The time is ripe for me to make way for a new coach who can come in with fresh ideas and run an­oth­er leg of the race. The play­ers who make up the se­nior team now were un­der me since 2000 and we have seen them grow from girls in­to young women.

"From sec­ondary school stu­dents, I have seen them grad­u­ate from uni­ver­si­ty and ready to take up po­si­tions in so­ci­ety. This tran­si­tion in their lives was of great im­por­tance to us, he added. "The time has come for them to hear a new voice on the foot­ball field. Life is not about hold­ing on to a po­si­tion for­ev­er, it is al­so about seek­ing out new chal­lenges and mak­ing room for oth­ers to rise and make their con­tri­bu­tions." Shabazz who serves in sev­er­al ca­pac­i­ties in the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTFF) in­clud­ing co­or­di­na­tor of the TTFF Coach Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme is al­so head coach of Cale­do­nia AIA of the T&T Pro League. How­ev­er he will not to­tal­ly leave the women's game.

"I will help with the Un­der-20 women's team and the re­gion­al cen­tres for de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme that the TTFF has set up. I will al­so con­tin­ue to be the biggest fan of the se­nior women's team be­cause foot­ball has made a spe­cial con­nec­tion in our lives. Un­der Shabazz and his long­stand­ing as­sis­tant Mar­lon Charles, T&T has con­sis­tent­ly the dom­i­nant women's team in the Caribbean and es­tab­lished them­selves as the fourth best team in Con­ca­caf be­hind USA, Cana­da and Mex­i­co. Last year Shabazz guid­ed the se­nior women to a sil­ver medal in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games and qual­i­fied this coun­try's women to the Pan Am Games which gets un­der­way in Oc­to­ber. For­mer as­sis­tant coach of the na­tion­al U-17 team Richard Hood has been act­ing as head coach of the women's se­nior team and is soon ex­pect­ed to be con­firmed in the po­si­tion by the TTFF.