TTFF to refute ‘bobol’ charge.
By: Walter Alibey (Newsday).[/size]
The Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation will tomorrow respond to a newspaper report charging they received in excess of $173 million during the last World Cup campaign.
Shaun Fuentes, the TTFF Media Officer said yesterday that a high profile meeting with TTFF’s general secretary Richard Groden and special advisor Jack Warner and the federation’s lawyers Om Lalla and Kelvin Ramkissoon was held at the Joao Havelange Concacaf Centre of Excellence, Tunapuna yesterday.
Warner and the top TTFF officials are attempting to receive pertinent documents before taking action against the damaging report alleging “bobol” or corruption.
Last night attorney Lalla pointed out that the Football Federation is “a complete stranger to the newspaper report” and therefore must be provided with a copy of the report before it can respond.
“Hopefully they will get a copy of the report by Monday and then they (TTFF) will know what steps to take,” Lalla said.
Yesterday’s newspaper report stated that Brent Williams, the Legal Advisor at the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs had faxed figures of the amount of monies received by the Football Federation based on a request by Bates, Wells and Braithwaite London LLP Solicitors.
Bates, Wells and Braithwaite London LLP Solicitors have been representing players who represented the Trinidad and Tobago Soca Warriors in their bid to recover monies that they claimed have been owed to them by the TTFF. They have been advocating that special advisor Jack Warner and the TTFF agreed to share with them 50 percent of all sponsorship funds received from the Germany World Cup campaign.
Making their debut, TT pulled off a surprised 0-0 draw with Sweden before being beaten by England and Paraguay by a similar 2-0 scoreline.
The players have also refused to accept an amount offered to them by the TTFF and have agreed to take legal action against their former employer.
But last night Lalla said they will first attempt to seek the intervention of an arbitrator when the matter comes up on Friday of this week.
The $173 million plus, it is alleged, was taken from Cabinet documents and other Governmental and Non governmental donors to the TTFF.
It is said also that in addition to the whopping $173 million, the football federation also received$32 million to be shared among the players and technical staff, while gate receipts from the international friendly matches against Iceland, Peru, Slovenia and the Czech Republic was also excluded from the report.
The players have since formed the Football Players Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT) and are being represented by a number of London lawyers who, according to the report, have never been able to figure out what sums of money are owed to the players.
It is stated that based on the figures revealed by government and Williams, the players (23 plus) will each be entitle to over $6 million. The players who were left out, include prolific striker Stern John, defender Brent Sancho, goalkeeper Kelvin Jack, striker Cornel Glen and Kenwyn Jones — among many others, have since been blacklisted from the TT squad. They were left out of the Trinidad and Tobago team which participated unsuccessfully at the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States.
