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As he did after his public spat with UNC leader Basdeo Panday, FIFA vice president Jack Warner changed his tune yesterday to accept financial assistance from the Government after stating that he was prepared to go without it the previous day.


On Tuesday he had labelled the behaviour of Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Roger Boynes as "boyish" in response to repeated calls from the Minister on the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (T&TFF) to provide his Ministry with a detailed budget for the national senior football team's preparation for Germany World Cup 2006, a budget originally promised to the Ministry after the December 9 Germany World Cup 2006 draw.

Boynes said yesterday that the T&TFF, represented by a much more sedate Warner and that organisation's president Oliver Camps, had produced a $55 million budget at a closed-door meeting lasting "a few hours" which touched on the role and function of the Government in the team's preparation.

However, Boynes advised that the T&TFF would have some "minor adjustments" to make, namely the inclusion of the technical staff salaries which Warner had pegged at $800,000 a month last October. Without offering a firm date, the Minster said the T&TFF is to re-submit the budget before it proceeds to Cabinet for approval, with adjustments that will make it more "holistic", according to Warner.

It was not the first time that Warner has adopted a new stance on an issue. Before the start of the 2006 World Cup final round campaign, Warner had called Yorke a cancer to the game and claimed that the current Sydney FC footballer would never play for Trinidad and Tobago again.

And Warner's penchant for switching positions stayed true yesterday.

"Yesterday was yesterday," the UNC deputy leader said, in response to a question about his change of position on accepting Government funding. "Today is today... so whatever is in the best national interest, I'm for it."

The budget presented to the Minister includes potential income of $25 million, $5 million of which is to be derived from "sponsorship and other things", according to Warner.

It also includes a net grant of US$3.384 million from FIFA for Trinidad and Tobago's qualification to the Cup as well as other monies expected to be gleaned from franchise fees and national team sponsor Adidas.

Asked if the budget included an allocation to honour players, Boynes said they were still awaiting that final figure from the T&TFF.

"We are yet to get that figure from the T&TFF. We understand that it is to include all category of players as well as players who started the campaign, but the T&TFF will have to guide us on that figure and we await their word," he said.

Boynes had also indicated that Prime Minister Patrick Manning was hoping to have discussions with team captain Dwight Yorke as soon as possible to look at ways of suitably honouring the players for their historic feat.

In stark contrast to his fiery mood at Tuesday's news conference to address the conflict of interest issues between his travel agency and the T&TFF raised in a three-part series in the Express, Warner was much more reserved.

"I'm pleased with how the meeting went," he said before adding jokingly that he was "pleased and thrilled and to tell the truth after yesterday I didn't expect to meet with the Minister today".

On the expenditure side, Warner told the media that three camps to London, Austria and Germany, respectively, would amount to some $23 million.

Asked when World Cup tickets would be made available to T&T nationals, Warner said that the T&TFF are to submit a proposal to FIFA today for the first time for this country's allocation which is already oversubscribed with some 7,000 to 8,000 requests for World Cup tickets made to the T&TFF.