‘Dog’ treatment for ex-TnT footballers.
By David Maynard (T&T Mirror).
Footballers who are dropped from the national team are later ignored and left to pay to see the same match they were training for a few days ago!
And a worse fate awaits the current crop who, on Wednesday night, brought TnT within one step of qualifying for the World Cup finals in Germany.
So said Clayton Morris who, 16 years after bringing TnT within one point of going to the World Cup finals in Italy, was shouted down at the gate on his way into the match venue for the crucial game, which TnT eventually won 2-1.
The famous Strike Squad captain, who was not officially invited to the do-or-die encounter against Mexico at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, had been attempting to hand to the gateman all at once, the tickets he had purchased for members of his family.
The attendant bawled at him to “give everybody dey ticket”!
Morris told TnT Mirror: “These are the type of things you have to go through.”
“Players who served the country shouldn’t be humiliated like this,” he added, raising an issue that seems to have been stuck in the craw of former players for some time now.
“You would have local players training with the national team and when the coach breaks down the team, those players have to leave and fight to get tickets to come and see the same team they were once a part of,” said Morris.
“When I look back at players like Angus (Eve) who contributed to the drive in the earlier stage (of this campaign) … I’m sure they weren’t invited.
“The present players would soon be former players and how would they be treated?”
Morris served on the national team for almost two decades, and is now a coach, like many former players.
He has noted, by comparison, persons merely known to be “hanging around CONCACAF”, who were allowed parking at the match venue and were able to brag about hobnobbing with society’s Who’s Who, in the VIP area.
“I am not saying this is what I want for myself,” said Morris, “but that these things should be available to people who served and are still serving.
“We are all coaching now; we want to show the fellows ‘this is what we achieved’, ‘this is the respect you get for the work you put in, serving your national team’.
“Other than the financial or the tangible gains like medals and trophies, ‘you’re being honoured for life’.
“These are incentives that they could work to achieve.”
Morris continued: “It really makes you wonder -- when those other people show their VIP passes and you look at what contribution they made and what you made and are still making -- why they put you in a lower category.”
Another former top national player Leonson Lewis, who is now a club coach in San Fernando, supports Morris’ view.
Lewis recommended that in the absence of other benefits like a fund to aid ex-nationals in time of need, a 20 to 30-year pass for players to see matches, “once you have served”.
But, he insisted: “It is not all about getting in free.”
Lewis explained: “It’s about the country respecting you as a person for what you did and giving you this in return.
“They promise you this and that medal, yet nothing is ever delivered, but they should do this to show appreciation.”
He said players looking on the horizon now may be only seeing former manager of the national team Richard Abraham suffering with cancer and battling it on his own.
“We’re not even allowed to help him so he could say he’s getting something back because there is no fund to contribute to; I think that is unfair,” added Lewis.
Like Morris, Lewis also pays to see TnT matches.
“They offer the players now and then, if you ask Mr. (Jack) Warner for a ticket, otherwise …,” Lewis revealed.
“We don’t get anything.
“They used us while we played, like they are using the players now, and after you finish play they have no use for you.
“You’re forgotten.
“Year after year, people play for the national team and end up having to pay, storm or beg to get into a game,” added Lewis.
“This shouldn’t be.”
