T&T senior men’s football team coach Dennis Lawrence says better communication between the T&T Football Association and T&T Pro League could have avoided the clashes with the First Citizens Cup fixtures and T&T versus Anguilla match on today. However, he made it clear that the information about the T&T friendly was passed on to T&T Pro League officials.
On Friday, Central FC managing director and T&T Pro League chairman Brent Sancho, a former national defender, labelled the move by the T&TFA to bring forward the T&T/Anguilla friendly, originally carded for Monday, by 24 hours as disrespectful to the Pro League.
“As a Pro League club owner, and now as acting chairman of the TT Pro League, I have always tried to support our national teams. Even when we have had important games, we have still tried to accommodate TTFA’s wishes,” Sancho said in a release.
“But this decision by David John-Williams – because I know for a fact that this hasn’t come from the TTFA board – is totally disrespecting clubs, players, supporters, and sponsors. We have First Citizens Cup matches being played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and you want to play a senior men’s international on the same weekend?”
Sancho pointed out that the Anguilla game was originally carded for tomorrow and that clubs had made plans to allow players to attend national team training. However, most clubs had planned to play those players in this weekend’s First Citizens Cup matches.
All eleven Pro League clubs are in action this weekend.
Sancho added that the FCB fixtures had been arranged weeks ago and it was the poor planning of TTFA that forced them to bring the game forward, adding the Pro league had also received no official confirmation of the friendly international.
“This is discourteous and totally disrespectful. Because of the timing, I have not had a chance to discuss this with the clubs, but Dennis Lawrence should be concerned about who will show up for the game on Sunday and what kind of condition the players will be in,” he said.
Sancho said a formal letter of complaint will be sent to TTFA president David John-Williams in an attempt to avoid such thoughtless decision making in the future.
Speaking at a national team briefing ahead of today’s match yesterday, Lawrence admitted the clash with matches was unfortunate.
“I think sometimes communication can be a serious problem because all the way through the entire thing there was communication in regards to the game being played. The only thing which I would say, which was a bit unfortunate, was that we would have liked to play the match on Monday, November 11, but then looking at the FIFA Rules and Regulations, you are not allowed to play more than two friendlies in an international window,” Lawrence said.
“So immediately when that happened, we had to make an adjustment, which was either to play the match on November 10 or after. Everything was already arranged for Anguilla to be here so we had to bring the game forward to one day, which ideally we didn’t want to do because we understand the First Citizens Cup is going on, but at the end of the day, we have to do our job and we have to do our work.”
However, Lawrence said the information had been passed on to the T&T Pro League.
“So the communication has been there all the way through and what I would say, the story when I saw it this morning it left a bad taste in my mouth because come on, David John-Williams ain’t arranging when we play the friendly or not. It was all something that had to be done for the benefit of the players, that’s the most important thing, and as I said before, once we found out we could not play more than two friendlies inside a window, we had to make an adjustment and unfortunately it clashed with the First Citizens Cup game.”
He added, “We have always worked together with the Pro League because they have always been good to us and we are always going to be good to them. So I think communication sometimes can be misleading, so the Pro League games will go ahead and we want them to go-ahead.
“The tournament (First Citizens Cup) is also beneficial to the boys as well, as they are now starting to build up some sort of rhythm because they have been inactive for so long. So it’s good to see the boys back on the pitch playing competitive football and hopefully at the end of the First Citizens Cup it will lead straight into the start of the Pro League starting so you can keep the boys and them active, because they have been dormant for too long and you cannot play professional football and be dormant for that length of period.”