WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Dr Ter­rence Bab­wah, doc­tor for the T&T foot­ball team has re­signed along with his as­sis­tant, medic Dave Isaac. Bab­wah de­liv­ered his res­ig­na­tion let­ter to the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion on Sat­ur­day out­lin­ing the rea­sons for his de­ci­sion, which hinged on a de­ci­sion by na­tion­al coach Stephen Hart to use in­jured goal­keep­er Jan-Michael Williams in the Hon­duras World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing match in San Pe­dro Su­la on Tues­day last.

The David John-Williams-led foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion has since called a spe­cial meet­ing to­mor­row evening at its of­fice at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo to ad­dress Bab­wah's res­ig­na­tion and oth­er is­sues re­gard­ing the se­nior men's foot­ball team, the Trinidad Guardian was told by a close source yes­ter­day.

When con­tact­ed on his de­ci­sion yes­ter­day Dr Bab­wah, who has been a mem­ber of the FI­FA Med­ical Pan­el since 2002 con­firmed his res­ig­na­tion, but said he has no fur­ther com­ment to make at this point.

It is un­der­stood Bab­wah, who has be­come a favourite with the foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty be­cause of his ex­per­tise on in­juries, had strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed that keep­er Williams not play in the Hon­duras en­counter be­cause he was med­ical­ly un­fit.

A mem­ber close to the TTFA told the Trinidad Guardian that the cus­to­di­an picked up a se­vere shoul­der in­jury in the Cos­ta Ri­ca match at the sta­di­um two weeks ago, and was un­able to raise his left hand or dive on his left side.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, "There was hard­ly any move­ment in William's left hand and he there­fore it could not be ex­tend­ed it and fur­ther­more, play in the game."

As a re­sult the goal­keep­er specif­i­cal­ly did light work in the train­ing ses­sions lead­ing up to the Hon­duras game and even had to be giv­en med­ica­tion to treat with pains.

Hart, it is un­der­stood, asked the goalie if he could play and he said yes, dis­re­gard­ing con­cerns ex­pressed by the med­ical team of Bab­wah and Isaac.

In Tues­day's en­counter Jan-Michael had to be tak­en off af­ter be­ing forced in­to a one-on-one sit­u­a­tion with strik­er Al­berth Elis in the 10th minute and re­ceived a knee to his head.

A re­port stat­ed he was knocked un­con­scious for about sev­en min­utes and had to un­der­go a CT scan that for­tu­nate­ly showed no bleed­ing on the brain.

Jan Michael of lo­cal pro club Cen­tral FC, was re­placed by sub­sti­tute Mar­vin Phillip but T&T lost the game 1-3, a re­sult that puts them sec­ond from bot­tom on the stand­ing in the Fi­nal Round.

It is un­der­stood Bab­wah's res­ig­na­tion came be­cause he felt desre­spect­ed, as his rep­u­ta­tion had been put on the line as a team doc­tor.

"He felt that his ad­vice was not lis­tened to as a doc­tor while the ad­vice of some­one who is not a doc­tor, was tak­en ahead of his" the source said. Ef­forts to con­tact John-Williams yes­ter­day proved fu­tile.