sto­ries by WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al youth coach Shawn Coop­er has been hard-hit by the new Safe­guard­ing Pol­i­cy of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA).

A re­port yes­ter­day stat­ed that Coop­er, who re­cent­ly coached the coun­try’s Un­der-17 boys’ team which came with­in a win of qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the U-17 World Cup in Qatar ear­li­er this year, was banned from coach­ing mi­nors 18 years and un­der, due to a breach of the safe­guard­ing pol­i­cy.

The penal­ty came from Gary St Rose, the T&T Safe­guard­ing, Play­er Care and Well­be­ing man­ag­er fol­low­ing ques­tions posed to the coun­try’s U-17 play­ers af­ter the tour­na­ment. In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Coop­er told Guardian Me­dia Sports he would of­fer a re­sponse soon.

St Rose in an in­ter­view said while he could not go in­to de­tails, he point­ed to the safe­guard­ing and frame­work pol­i­cy 3.0, say­ing: “At the TTFA, we have our process­es and the process­es were fol­lowed. The pol­i­cy out­lines the process that you must fol­low.”

Guardian Me­dia Sports point­ed to Sec­tion III and Ar­ti­cle 29 which con­veys that: “Where a per­son and or or­gan­i­sa­tion is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for abuse, a breach of the Safe­guard­ing pol­i­cy, or for a crim­i­nal of­fence, the TTFA shall im­pose con­di­tions on that per­sons or or­gan­i­sa­tions li­cense to work with chil­dren, youth play­ers and vul­ner­a­ble groups.”

As a re­sult, St Rose in a re­lease on Sat­ur­day said, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) writes to ad­vise, that by Sec­tion III Ar­ti­cle 29 of the TTFA Safe­guard­ing Pol­i­cy and Frame­work 3.0, age group re­stric­tions have been placed on the Safe­guard­ing Li­cense of Mr Shawn Coop­er.

“With im­me­di­ate ef­fect and by Sec­tion III, Ar­ti­cle 29 Mr Shawn Coop­er is pro­hib­it­ed from coach­ing youth play­ers (18 years and un­der), un­til fur­ther no­tice.”

Coop­er is not on­ly known to have coached youth na­tion­al boys’ and girls’ teams for many years but has al­so coached at the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) lev­el for sev­er­al years. He is cur­rent­ly the coach of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, the win­ner of the 2023 South Zone and Co­ca-Co­la Na­tion­al In­ter­Col ti­tles.

Coop­er’s de­fence is like­ly to be equipped with le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives as St Rose re­veals the em­bat­tled coach will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­peal the ban. Coop­er has vowed to de­fend his good name, say­ing it will be done soon.

Ear­li­er this year, the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion at a press brief­ing in Feb­ru­ary, con­tin­ued its strides to­ward the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren and the vul­ner­a­ble with the launch­ing of its re­vised Safe­guard­ing Frame­work and Pol­i­cy.

At the launch FI­FA’s Head of Safe­guard­ing and Child Pro­tec­tion Marie-Lau­re Lem­ineur, who was the fea­tured speak­er, praised the ef­forts of the TTFA and its stake­hold­ers in adopt­ing and en­forc­ing de­tailed mech­a­nisms to mon­i­tor and pro­tect those at risk with­in the foot­ball ecosys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to Marie-Lau­re Lem­ineur: “Not long ago the lead­er­ship of the TTFA, took a very coura­geous de­ci­sion to em­bark on their safe­guard­ing jour­ney. Twen­ty-four (24) months lat­er, this foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion, has pro­duced one of the most elab­o­ra­tive and com­plete safe­guard­ing frame­works that I know of.

“This frame­work ticks all the box­es. It has the in­ter­est of the vic­tims and the chil­dren at its heart, it de­fines clear mech­a­nisms in case of in­ci­dents, it de­fines clear pro­ce­dur­al rules and sanc­tions in case of non-com­pli­ance, it es­tab­lish­es li­cens­ing re­quire­ments for clubs, teams and acad­e­mies and it pro­motes a cul­ture of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

The Next Lev­el Con­sult­ing Lim­it­ed (NL­CL) Com­mu­ni­ty Cup, which is found­ed and run by Bri­an Jor­dan, was the first to have been pe­nalised by way of a 90-day sus­pen­sion by the TTFA Safe­guard­ing for breach. But St Rose re­vealed that the pe­ri­od for the pro­vi­sion­al sus­pen­sion has end­ed and there will be no fur­ther ac­tion by the TTFA at this time.