"Un­pro­fes­sion­al." It's how for­mer na­tion­al and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege coach Shawn Coop­er has de­scribed the sud­den res­ig­na­tion of Welsh­man James Thomas as the T&T women’s coach to pick up an of­fer in the Unit­ed King­dom with a club side.

Thomas' res­ig­na­tion came some five months af­ter he was of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed fol­low­ing a rig­or­ous re­cruit­ment and se­lec­tion process that took al­most the same amount of time he has been in the job ahead of sev­er­al top lo­cal coach­es.

Coop­er, the on­ly coach to have won na­tion­al In­ter­Col ti­tles with two schools, said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that Thomas was on­ly con­cerned about boost­ing his re­sume to get a bet­ter job.

With T&T women set to en­ter the World Cup Qual­i­fiers close to the end of next month (No­vem­ber), Coop­er, a for­mer na­tion­al women's coach, said: “Clear­ly, he wasn’t con­cerned about that, be­cause I can't see any pro­fes­sion­al coach re­sign­ing a job that he was so pas­sion­ate in tak­ing up be­cause it would have been his first as­sign­ment as a head coach, so you know he would have been ea­ger, and it is an in­ter­na­tion­al job, but you let go that job for a club job.

"I mean it’s the UK and it’s pay­ing more and what­ev­er, but this is in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball we’re talk­ing about, so it shows that he just want­ed the ti­tle of head coach on his re­sume so that he could go fur­ther and pur­sue oth­er jobs.

"He wasn’t re­al­ly con­cerned about T&T foot­ball. If he was, as he said be­fore, he would not have left the job at this time. Any coach would know that one month be­fore a tour­na­ment is a very cru­cial time.

"The on­ly rea­son you would leave a job in a month’s time is prob­a­bly be­cause you weren’t paid or you were dis­grun­tled with the as­so­ci­a­tion.”

The T&T women’s team has been drawn in Group F, which al­so in­cludes Guyana, Nicaragua, Do­mini­ca and the Turks and Caicos Is­lands. They are sched­uled to open against the Nicaraguans.

But with as­sis­tant coach Char­lie Mitchell, who is al­so from Wales, set to take over un­til a new head coach is sought af­ter, the team will have very lit­tle time to pre­pare.

The par­ent body, T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion which is be­ing man­aged by a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee led by Robert Hadad, will have to de­cide whether it wants to re­cruit an in­ter­na­tion­al coach or re­vert to the lo­cal coach­es.

Ac­cord­ing to Coop­er, who is al­so a for­mer na­tion­al boys' Un­der-17 coach: “They thought none of our coach­es was qual­i­fied enough to take the job, so I can’t see them now go­ing back to the same set of coach­es to ask them to be a head coach.

"If you weren’t good enough to be an as­sis­tant coach be­fore, how on earth you can be good enough to be a head coach?

"You know, we keep do­ing our lo­cal coach­es that be­cause we feel that it is our coun­try and we would like to serve, but you keep dis­re­spect­ing the coach­es. So, I am wait­ing and hold­ing my breath to see which one of them now will take up the man­tle as the head coach.”