New­ly formed T&T Bas­ket­ball Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­PA), led by in­ter­im chair­man Tris­ton Ben­jamin, has called on the elect­ed mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) to step down.

On Wednes­day in a re­lease, the TTB­PA formed by play­ers’ who be­long to var­i­ous Zones un­der the NBFTT has be­come dis­en­chant­ed by the way the cur­rent body head­ed by Claire Mitchell is man­ag­ing the sport lo­cal­ly.

"We the play­ers are call­ing on the elect­ed of­fi­cers to re­sign and let the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship host a fresh elec­tion to put peo­ple in of­fice who re­al­ly want to see the sport progress," ac­cord­ing to the re­lease which added that a re­cent move by the NBFTT has cause a ma­jor up­roar among lo­cal bas­ket­ballers with the han­dling of the sport par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic.

"We the bas­ket­ball play­ers of T&T are very dis­ap­point­ed with the de­ci­sion tak­en by the NBFTT to an­nounce that Na­tion­al Tri­als for the Un­der-17 boys' bas­ket­ball team will com­mence on Wednes­day 23rd June, 2021 and con­tin­ue at three venues across T&T in sub­se­quent days.

"This move by the NBFTT shows that it does not care about the play­ers es­pe­cial­ly since this event would take place dur­ing this coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic and worse yet dur­ing a State of Emer­gency.

"This is ab­solute­ly un­ac­cept­able by the NBFTT which is demon­strat­ing that the Board of Di­rec­tors does not care about the play­ers and their wel­fare. The NBFTT has not ad­vised the play­ers on when or where the tour­na­ment would take place, not what are the COVID Health and Safe­ty pro­to­cols would be im­ple­ment­ed."

Ben­jamin, a Strak­er Nets guard, and the group raised four ques­tions on the NBFTT's man­age­ment of the sport, specif­i­cal­ly na­tion­al teams, which fol­lows:

What kind of prepa­ra­tion will the team un­der­go as these are teenagers whose in­di­vid­ual games are still at the de­vel­op­men­tal stage?

Is the NBFTT send­ing a team to a tour­na­ment to just par­tic­i­pate in­stead of hav­ing the team pre­pared for a few months like in the past such that T&T can en­ter a tour­na­ment to com­pete rather than par­tic­i­pate?

How can the play­ers be sure that the NBFTT has the fi­nances or is get­ting the fi­nances to pre­pare the team and en­sure that the team at­tends the tour­na­ment?

What about the girls'team, is there a girls' na­tion­al Un­der-17 team al­so?

An­oth­er con­cern pre­sent­ed in the TTB­PA re­lease was the an­nounce­ment by the NBFTT, that the na­tion­al men’s Un­der-23 3x3 bas­ket­ball team has booked a tick­et to the 2021 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games which will take place in Cali, Colom­bia from No­vem­ber 28-30.

"We the play­ers are con­cerned about how T&T qual­i­fied, and how the na­tion­al play­ers will be se­lect­ed as a pri­vate tour­na­ment took place in late March and ear­ly April for ‘spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed’ play­ers who used this op­por­tu­ni­ty to be placed in an ad­van­ta­geous po­si­tion, to be se­lect­ed ahead of play­ers who were not in­vit­ed or who had high­er rank­ing points pri­or.

"While the NBFTT is hap­py about this qual­i­fi­ca­tion, the fact is that some play­ers were placed at a dis­ad­van­tage and to date, the NBFTT is yet to ad­dress their con­cerns."

"It is the play­ers strong be­lief that the cur­rent of­fi­cers of the NBFTT do not have the play­ers and the sport at heart and the sport is be­ing mis­man­aged where­by friends and those loy­al to the elect­ed of­fi­cers are be­ing pre­ferred with favours; rather than, pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for every­one in the sport on mer­it."