Nigel Si­mon

Amidst the re­cent rev­e­la­tions by the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tions that its op­er­a­tion is un­der fi­nan­cial con­straints, mem­bers of the se­nior na­tion­al team and its tech­ni­cal staff are still await­ing salaries for 13 re­cent in­ter­na­tion­al match­es. The match­es run from Ju­ly of this year to the just con­clud­ed Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup Fi­nals in Mar­tinique. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, the se­nior na­tion­al play­ers played match­es against An­tigua & Bar­bu­da (two), Ja­maica (two), Be­lize, St Lu­cia, Guyana (two), St Vin­cent and The Grenadines, Haiti, Cu­ba, Grena­da and Mar­tinique. The lone match for which the play­ers and some staff mem­bers were paid was the away in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly on Sep­tem­ber 7 away to Pana­ma.

Three days lat­er, T&T al­so played away to Be­lize but the play­ers were not paid. Dur­ing the 13 match­es, some mem­bers of the tech­ni­cal staff have had to use monies from their pock­ets to cov­er team ex­pens­es. Mem­bers of the tech­ni­cal staff have al­so gone close to a year with­out pay­ments from the TTFF. The Guardian learned staff last re­ceived $10,000 each in Sep­tem­ber 2009 be­fore the team was dis­band­ed af­ter T&T failed to qual­i­fy for the World Cup Fi­nals. Four mem­bers of the staff, in­clu­sive of coach Rus­sell Lat­apy, man­ag­er David Muham­mad, as­sis­tant man­ag­er, Pe­ter Ram­per­sad and Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor Lin­coln Phillips have all been re­ceiv­ing month­ly stipends.

Lat­apy has not re­ceived a full salary for over a year. While not want­i­ng to make ex­cus­es for Lat­apy, his staff and the play­ers for their failed Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup Fi­nals cam­paign, the source said the T&T War­riors must be com­mend­ed for work­ing un­der those cir­cum­stances. He drew ref­er­ence to the sit­u­a­tion with the Ja­maican play­ers who threat­ened to with­hold their ser­vices in Mar­tinique if their wage de­mands were not met. The source not­ed the War­riors knew of the Ja­maican protest but nev­er thought about do­ing the same. "They were all com­mit­ted to the team ef­fort and do­ing their coun­try proud." The source added that there was nev­er a chance of the T&T play­ers strik­ing.

"But you have to un­der­stand the tech­ni­cal staff has been work­ing with lim­it­ed re­sources for a very long time and they are ex­pect­ed to pull off mirac­u­lous re­sults. "The guys were hop­ing with Mr Warn­er in Gov­ern­ment and Anil Roberts at the Min­istry of Sports it would have been eas­i­er to get sup­port for the sport. "They were told that they had to wait un­til a new board was put in place at the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) but that has tak­en place over a month now and the guys are still await­ing pay­ments." "Mr Lat­apy con­tin­ued to work with the play­ers telling them to for­get about the mon­ey sit­u­a­tions and the con­di­tions and that it would come once the re­sults were be­ing achieved on the field.

Yet af­ter three con­sec­u­tive wins in the Dig­i­cel Cup, the play­ers were still left wait­ing. Not even a word of con­grat­u­la­tions from the T&TFF. These things don't go un­no­ticed by the play­ers be­cause they are hu­man be­ings too and can be sen­si­tive at times. And al­so you have to con­sid­er that all of our play­ers in the cur­rent squad are not for­tu­nate to have lu­cra­tive con­tracts in Eu­rope like some of the oth­ers, so it can­not be a sit­u­a­tion where the mon­ey should not mat­ter."