Nigel Si­mon

While stay­ing clear of pick­ing sides in the on­go­ing dis­pute be­tween the Min­is­ter of Sport Brent San­cho and Ray­mond Tim Kee led T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TFA), its gen­er­al sec­re­tary Shel­don Phillips has come in for some harsh crit­i­cism from T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee boss, Bri­an Lewis.

In fact, Lewis, not one to mix his words, has la­belled Phillips, the son of for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er Lin­coln "Tiger" Phillips" as be­ing dis­re­spect­ful in his han­dling of re­cent is­sues with re­gards to the na­tion­al Un­der-23 foot­ballers, both men and women, who are cur­rent­ly at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Toron­to, Cana­da.

The Women So­ca War­riors, cap­tained by Maylee At­tin-John­son ex­it­ed the tour­na­ment af­ter end­ing with two points from their round-robin group, a 1-1 draw with Ar­genti­na and 2-2 dead­lock with Colom­bia, be­fore los­ing 3-1 to Mex­i­co in a must win match.

On the oth­er hand, the Un­der-23 men's team led by Alvin Jones were oust­ed from their tour­na­ment af­ter los­ing big to Uruguay (4-0) and Paraguay (5-1) ahead of what was ex­pect­ed to be their fi­nal round-robin match at the Hamil­ton Soc­cer Sta­di­um last night.

But that match was in jeop­ardy of not com­ing off as the Un­der-23s had threat­ened to boy­cott the match over what they say was un­paid match fees of US$500 promised to them by the T&TFA via its gen­er­al sec­re­tary Phillip.

The Women So­ca War­riors had al­so threat­ened to boy­cott the tour­na­ment but was ad­vised to go to Cana­da by Min­is­ter San­cho, while his Min­istry and the T&TFA worked on re­solv­ing the mat­ter.

But af­ter al­most two weeks in North Amer­i­ca and no con­fir­ma­tion of pay­ments com­ing from the T&TFA, it was said the na­tion­al Un­der-23 play­ers let their feel­ings be known to team of­fi­cials.

In ad­di­tion to match fees and stipend for the two teams and of­fi­cials in Cana­da, monies owed to the na­tion­al Olympic (un­der-23) team and tech­ni­cal staff are al­so out­stand­ing, with no con­fir­ma­tion of when and how it will be paid.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Phillip first de­fend­ed the right of the play­ers to make a re­quest for match fees say­ing that pri­or to past teams, ma­jor­i­ty of the foot­ballers were now pro­fes­sion­als at clubs and need­ed to pro­vide for their fam­i­lies.

"The en­tire dy­nam­ics have changed from us hav­ing a main­ly am­a­teur na­tion­al team to a pro­fes­sion­al unit.

"So I don't think it was an un­fair sum, but what we have to do now is look at the sys­tem and see what can be done to en­sure we get the nec­es­sary fund­ing in a time­ly man­ner to sat­is­fy the play­ers and man­age­ment needs to avoid any prob­lems", end­ed Phillips.

Reached here in Trinidad, Lewis said that hav­ing spo­ken to the T&TOC man­age­ment team in Cana­da, in chef de mis­sion Di­anne Hen­der­son and sec­re­tary gen­er­al An­nette Knott, he was con­fi­dent that every­thing would be sort­ed out.

"We have a very strong and ex­pe­ri­enced T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee man­age­ment team in Toron­to, and they have worked to­geth­er with all the team man­agers for months in prepa­ra­tion for the Toron­to 2015 Games, that's how the T&TOC has al­ways op­er­at­ed. As an ath­lete cen­tred and fo­cused or­gan­i­sa­tion we fo­cus a lot on cre­at­ing the en­vi­ron­ment that will sup­port the ath­letes, we have a his­to­ry of do­ing that.

"Trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion and meals are all pro­vid­ed for in the am­bit of the Pan Amer­i­can Games as well as med­ical. As a mat­ter of fact, the se­nior women's foot­ball team, which com­pet­ed at the Pan Amer­i­can Games, cur­rent­ly has a few in­jury is­sues which are be­ing ad­dressed by the T&TOC med­ical team in Toron­to.

"The women's foot­ball team made a re­quest of the T&OC for the team to stay and do some prepa­ra­tion ahead of their Con­ca­caf Women's Olympic qual­i­fiers and we ac­ced­ed to that re­quest.

So the T&TOC has al­ways sought to work close­ly with all the stake­hold­ers to en­sure that at the end of the day, the ath­letes best in­ter­est is served, but at the same time we op­er­ate with­in our means. And as I have said on pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, this is the first Games we are fo­cus­ing on per­for­mance based medal bonus­es go­ing for­ward. All of our cor­po­rate part­ners' dis­cus­sions now in­clude ath­lete wel­fare as­pects of it, in the con­text of ten or more Olympic Gold medals by the year 2024. So we have tak­en over the last two years a par­tic­u­lar strate­gic fo­cus and ini­tia­tive and that's why we we're able to in­tro­duce the medal bonus­es.

"But we have al­ways found it when we have done the arith­metic and the num­bers that it is not sus­tain­able in terms of match fees and per diems and stipends and there­fore it is not a pol­i­cy per­spec­tive of the T&TOC at this point in time. So that while we have not re­ceived any of­fi­cial word to this date, the T&TTOC has not had the cour­tesy or the re­spect from the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the T&TFA Shel­don Phillips."

He added: "State­ments have been made per­ti­nent to the Pan Am Games which is un­der the aus­pices of the T&TOC with­out any dis­cus­sion with the T&TOC. We (T&TOC) re­spect the au­ton­o­my of its mem­ber or­gan­i­sa­tion, but what we ex­pect in turn is a cer­tain mod­icum of re­spect and cour­tesy with games un­der us.

"We are hear­ing all sorts of things, but not a word from them (T&TFA)."

He re­it­er­at­ed: "I have not re­ceived an of­fi­cial word, not even as a point of cour­tesy from the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the T&TFA who con­tin­ues, from what I have been hear­ing, to make state­ments rel­e­vant to the Pan Am Games that is out­side of his re­mit."

Asked if he has spo­ken with T&TFA pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee about the on­go­ing is­sue, Lewis replied, "I have on­go­ing con­ver­sa­tions with the pres­i­dent of the T&TFA, as a mat­ter of fact, just two weeks ago, I was in the pres­ence of both the gen­er­al sec­re­tary and the pres­i­dent be­cause I served on the in­de­pen­dent re­form Com­mis­sion of the T&TFA and this is why the lack of cour­tesy and re­spect in this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter is very dis­ap­point­ing.

"Be­cause when the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the T&TFA needs to con­tact me for oth­er things, he is quite ready and able to do so.

"And there­fore I can form no oth­er con­clu­sion that a lot of the prob­lems be­ing cre­at­ed sur­round­ing this Pan Am Games which is un­prece­dent­ed have to land square­ly in the lap of the T&TFA gen­er­al sec­re­tary, in the ab­sence of any of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion."

"So what is hap­pen­ing is that the T&TOC is hear­ing things, then hav­ing to ad­dress things in the ab­sence of of­fi­cial no­ti­fi­ca­tion.

"This is hap­pen­ing even though there is a lev­el of cour­tesy in com­mu­ni­ca­tion that one ex­pects and as I said this is un­prece­dent­ed be­cause we don't have this prob­lem I can say with any oth­er na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion, es­pe­cial­ly the ones that are ac­cus­tomed trav­el­ling with the T&TOC."