WASA offered Pro League spot.
By: Ian Prescott (Express).[/size]
B-Mobile National Super League champions WASA Football Club, have been given until the end of January to decide whether they want to join the Trinidad and Tobago Pro League for its 2008 season.
Should they meet the requirements to get into the League, the Water & Sewerage Authority (WASA) team will automatically replace Tobago United, who finished bottom of the 10-team Pro League in the just-concluded season. Confirming that WASA may be promoted to the professional league was Dexter Skeene, chief executive officer of the T&T Pro League.
"WASA have expressed an interest in coming into the league and we have given them until the end of January to fulfill the requirements to come into the league. As long as they do that, they will be afforded the opportunity to come into the Pro league," he told the Express.
Asked if there were any other candidates seeking to enter the League in 2008, Skeene said: "Only WASA at this point. They have won the Super League and they will come into the Pro League at the expense of Tobago United".
Meanwhile, WASA team manager Ralph Haynes said that team officials were having ongoing meetings with WASA management about the possibility of fielding a professional team next season. However, Haynes says WASA are in a peculiar situation not faced by any other club in the Pro League.
"Unlike clubs such as CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh and Joe Public, WASA face unique circumstances in that we are a state enterprise, and as such will be using public funds to field a team if we are going into the Pro League. That in itself is a very big decision, because when you are successful everyone will be backing the move, but if not there is always an outcry. But we have been having ongoing meetings with management to consider having us play in the Pro League next season."
Haynes noted further: "We are not a football organisation as such, but success has caused the organisation to look up and consider the possibility. We have seen the impact that our team has had on the football fraternity in recent years, and that in turn has had a positive feedback on the entire organisation as well."
Haynes also hoped that new Public Utilities minister Mustapha Abdul Hamid will be supportive of their effort to turn the now semi-professional club into a totally professional unit, where players will be paid to play football on a full-time basis.
The WASA team manager firmly believes the Super League champions have the player resources to make a success of the Pro League. He recalled WASA'S achievements as a football club such as being the first National Super League team to capture the Trinidad and Tobago FA Trophy which they did in 2006. WASA not only played unbeaten to win the Super League in 2007 but won the Super League Big Four competition as well and were semi-finalists in the Super League Knockout.
All he thinks is needed now is the political will to make it happen. Haynes says the club have an important meeting with management during the first week in January, 2008, when a lot of decisions will be made.
"The Pro League have given us until the end of January. We will be putting forward our arguments and by then a decision should be made. We have been having ongoing meeting with management about, so far, so good. The last Minister was very supportive, and we are hoping that with similar support, we will be playing in the Pro League next season," Haynes said.
Getting in the way: Vernon Bailey, centre, the Wasa central defender, gets between WASA keeper Douglas McNeilly, right, and Gregory Richardson, left, Joe Public's Guyanese striker. Joe Public edged defending champions WASA 3-2, on the way to capturing the 2007 Trinidad and Tobago FA Trophy competition earlier this month. -Photo: Anisto Alves.
