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TTFA SCOLDED

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar gave the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association a slap on the wrist yesterday as she called on the local football organisation to get its house in order to provide funding for football in T&T.

At the beginning of her short address at the cheque distribution event for the Women Soca Warriors at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s, Persad-Bissessar said: “I do hope the TTFA would improve its efforts so that you can continue to fund the football in our country for the players, women, children, men while the government has stepped in the crease to assist. 

‘’I think the TTFA also has a duty and a responsibility to continue to improve their efforts to fund and assisting the funding, you all agree?,” she asked, to which some in the gathering responded by saying yes.

Since the departure of former Government Minister and former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, the TTFA, who elected Raymond Tim Kee president in 2012, discovered it was saddled with over $36 million in debt to players, technical staff, vendors and commercial interests. 

The Government twice came to their rescue to pay off the debt owed to 13 Soca Warriors from the successfull 2006 World Cup campaign, headed by Brent Sancho, then earlier this month to the current senior men’s team and technical staff, including the head coach Stephen Hart, who had not been paid a salary in eight months.

The TTFA general secretary Sheldon Phillips had acknowledged that the football body still owed $12 million to previous coaches, technical staff members, vendors and also still had to pay off debts related to the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the Women’s Under-17 2010 World Cup.

However, he was confident that there would not be a re-occurrence of lapses in payment to the current staff and players in 2015, expecting some corporate partnerships to bear fruit.