Min­is­ter of Sports & Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts said he ful­ly sup­ports the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TTFA) plans to re­brand the na­tion­al men’s foot­ball team fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sy over roy­al­ties for the use of the “So­ca War­riors” nick­name.

In a brief re­sponse on the is­sue in­volv­ing the TTFA and for­mer sports jour­nal­ist and broad­cast­er Sel­wyn Melville, Watts said, “I was briefly in­formed about the So­ca War­riors meet­ing with Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs David Nakhid. 

“I did not at­tend be­cause I was trav­el­ling over­seas on a work as­sign­ment. How­ev­er, I don’t agree with the gov­ern­ment get­ting in­volved in the mat­ter be­cause it is a pri­vate mat­ter be­tween Mr Sel­wyn Melville and the TTFA, which is an in­de­pen­dent sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. This mat­ter is not eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able for the gov­ern­ment. I sup­port the TTFA plan to re­brand the team.”

At Thurs­day’s meet­ing, which was called by Nakhid, a for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller, at his of­fice on Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain, it was agreed that Melville will pre­pare and sub­mit two pro­pos­als for re­view by the TTFA. 

The TTFA was rep­re­sent­ed by its first vice pres­i­dent, Col­in Mur­ray, on be­half of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, at the meet­ing which in­clud­ed Melville, his lawyer Egon Em­brack, his wife and busi­ness part­ner Fran­cis­ca Fe­lix-Melville, Es­ther Duff, Mar­ket­ing and Brand Ad­vi­sor, as well as Nakhid, who served as a me­di­a­tor.

The meet­ing came about af­ter Melville and the lo­cal foot­ball body failed to agree on a com­pen­sa­tion pack­age re­quest­ed by Melville for the use of the “So­ca War­riors” nick­name, which he has the rights to.

Melville had stat­ed that he was the per­son to give the team the nick­name “So­ca War­riors” back in the late 1990s, and since then, he has re­ceived the trade­mark cer­tifi­cate for it in 2022. 

Speak­ing af­ter the meet­ing, Melville said his meet­ing with Nakhid (David) and the TTFA was very cor­dial.

He said, “We have dis­cussed a num­ber of is­sues and we are now prepar­ing to go back to the draw­ing board to fi­nalise our dis­cus­sions and see what we have to come up with to please the peo­ple of T&T and en­sure that the name ‘So­ca War­riors’ con­tin­ue with­in the foot­ball cam­paign, and we look for­ward to qual­i­ty ac­tion from our peo­ple.”

“And al­so, what we have to do in the fu­ture by se­cur­ing the name So­ca War­riors and we hope that every­thing goes well,” said Melville.

Mur­ray, first vice pres­i­dent of the T&TFA, and like Melville said, it was a cor­dial and good meet­ing, but the TTFA’s po­si­tion has not changed.

He said, “We want­ed to know what you are look­ing at, and they said they didn’t re­al­ly come with any­thing new to of­fer.

“They thought we might have sort of said to them, this is our of­fer. I said, we can’t of­fer you any­thing be­cause we re­al­ly don’t know what you want. So, he even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed that they would go away, they would come back to us with a pro­pos­al. We told them quite frankly that what his orig­i­nal pro­pos­al was, is not fly­ing with us, where he want­ed US$750,000 (TT$5,085,000), a year for five years. Plus, he want­ed to re­tain some of the mer­chan­dis­ing ma­te­r­i­al. And we said, no, if we’re ne­go­ti­at­ing at all with you, we want to buy out. But they weren’t in favour of that. So, he is go­ing to come back to us with two types of pro­pos­als.”

Mur­ray added that, “One, where if we still want to buy out, we can go with that. Or sec­ond­ly, he opt­ed for a mar­ket­ing pro­pos­al where he will come up with some sort of plan where we could sort of share rev­enue and things like that go­ing for­ward.” 

Pressed as to whether the TTFA will en­gage any­one who is specif­i­cal­ly fo­cused on IP (In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty), to fig­ure out what would be amenable for both par­ties? 

Mur­ray said, “Not re­al­ly. We haven’t gone in that di­rec­tion, as I said. We have to be very care­ful go­ing for­ward with it, not be­cause of the state of the fi­nances. The TTFA is not a well-to-do or­gan­i­sa­tion, and we strug­gle for a rev­enue stream. We do have some great ideas com­ing for­ward that we’re hop­ing will serve us in good stead go­ing for­ward, es­pe­cial­ly with the World Cup qual­i­fiers com­ing up. But, no, we haven’t re­al­ly en­gaged any­body to say we’re go­ing to look at it and de­cide.”

Mur­ray not­ed that the search for a new name for the team at this time would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. 

For­mer na­tion­al cap­tain, Nakhid, al­so said the meet­ing went well.

He said, “You know the dif­fer­ence be­tween them be­fore, as I stat­ed, was night and day, and now we’ve sig­nif­i­cant­ly closed that gap, where we have an agree­ment in prin­ci­ple, and now they’ve gone back to as­sess the fig­ures that we can reach a con­clu­sion to this thing hope­ful­ly by next week. We’ve set cer­tain time­lines and once they are met by next week, we should have a res­o­lu­tion and I think the peo­ple of T&T will be hap­py with that.”

Asked if the gov­ern­ment will have a hand in what­ev­er so­lu­tion comes be­tween the two groups, Nakhid said, “The hand the gov­ern­ment has is what I am do­ing now.

“What I’m do­ing is fol­low­ing in­struc­tions from the Min­is­ter and from the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to find a so­lu­tion. I fa­cil­i­tat­ed the meet­ing and I brought them to­geth­er and we have an agree­ment in prin­ci­ple,” ex­plained Nakhid.

With re­gards to whether the gov­ern­ment will help pay any of what fig­ure is agreed to by both par­ties, if any at all, Nakhid said, “No, that will have to go back to the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and de­pends on what hap­pens, but these are in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ties.

He said, “This is a man who has a right and this is the TTFA who is an NSO, a na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. These are in­de­pen­dent, and we have no oblig­a­tion oth­er than to try as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the tax­pay­ers of T&T and try, and find a so­lu­tion as we go for­ward and get our team in­to the World Cup for next year.”