The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion has re­ceived a much-need­ed fi­nan­cial boost to man­age the af­fairs of the sport, cour­tesy of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) of T&T on Tues­day night.

The com­pa­ny, known for its sup­port of sports de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try added a new chap­ter to its his­to­ry of sup­port by pump­ing $3 mil­lion to the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion in a deal that will cov­er the pe­ri­od of 2025 to 2026.

On Tues­day (March 25) the com­pa­ny ini­ti­at­ed a two-year spon­sor­ship arrange­ment with the Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) when it hand­ed over a cheque to the as­so­ci­a­tion at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va.

The pre­sen­ta­tion was made to TTFA pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards dur­ing the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup qual­i­fi­er match be­tween T&T's So­ca War­riors and Cu­ba, which the home team won hand­some­ly 4-0 to earn a spot at the Con­ca­caf Gold, card­ed for June 14 to Ju­ly 6 in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

The oc­ca­sion marked a fit­ting con­text for a part­ner­ship that aims ul­ti­mate­ly at re­sourc­ing and strength­en­ing the na­tion­al foot­ball team.

A re­lease from the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion out­lined some of the com­mit­ments of the part­ner­ship, which in­clude- (1) Sup­port of T&T’s World Cup cam­paign, (2) Fund­ing of play­er prepa­ra­tion, in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al train­ing camps, friend­ly match­es, and spe­cialised coach­ing, (3)

Sup­port of team lo­gis­tics to com­pete suc­cess­ful­ly in qual­i­fiers and tour­na­ments, (4) Sup­port of the se­nior men’s na­tion­al team lo­cal train­ing camps, in­clud­ing pro­vi­sion of world-class fa­cil­i­ties, tech­ni­cal staff, and match sim­u­la­tions, (5) De­vel­op­ment of play­ers who em­body na­tion­al pride and in­spire com­mu­ni­ties, (6) En­er­gis­ing the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL), a vi­tal tal­ent pool for the na­tion­al team, and (7) The cre­ation of av­enues for com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment through the league, fos­ter­ing so­cial uni­ty and youth em­pow­er­ment.

NGC chair­man Dr Joseph Ish­mael Khan, speak­ing on the ra­tio­nale be­hind the spon­sor­ship made it clear sport is one of the long­stand­ing pil­lars of NGC’s ex­ten­sive Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pro­gramme, be­cause of the clear val­ue it adds to so­ci­ety. "Foot­ball is one of those sports that im­pas­sion our peo­ple, and we hold fast to hopes of re­turn­ing to com­pete at the World Cup," he ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Khan: “We at NGC have seen a role for us as a na­tion­al com­pa­ny to in­vest in the pur­suit of that na­tion­al dream, by help­ing to fund and fa­cil­i­tate the nec­es­sary ground­work that will get us there."

Apart from Dr Khan, the NGC was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by NGC pres­i­dent (Ag.) Ed­mund Sub­ryan, and NGC vice pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Ser­vices, Gre­go­ry Sealy.