T&T de­fend­er Shel­don Bateau has signed a three-year deal with Bel­gium top flight club KV Meche­len and will re­turn to the club which he first joined in Eu­rope in 2012.

Bateau missed the 2019 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup due to club com­mit­ments with cur­rent Nor­we­gian club Sarps­borg 08 and is re­lieved to have se­cured the new deal with his for­mer em­ploy­ees.

“I have one game left so I am still fo­cused on that at the mo­ment along with the birth of my son and the trans­fer, I haven’t had enough time to re­al­ly take it all in but I’m hap­py to be back in one of the top leagues in Eu­rope and more im­por­tant­ly I’m de­light­ed to be back home in Meche­len,” Bateau said yes­ter­day.

“It was my first club in Eu­rope and they’ve made a lot of im­prove­ments since I left, in­clud­ing the up­grad­ing of the sta­di­um. I’m re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to re­join­ing the club and play­ing in the Bel­gian league again,” he not­ed.

“At 28 I need­ed sta­bil­i­ty and I’ve found that which is re­al­ly pleas­ing at this stage of my ca­reer.”

The for­mer San Juan Jabloteh play­er al­so had in­ter­est from clubs in Poland, Bel­gium, Cyprus, Is­rael and Greece, but he said “I felt like Meche­len was the best move at this time.”