Trinidad and Tobago’s Senior National Men’s Team will depart for St Kitts/Nevis on Monday and will in fact participate in the opening phase of the Caribbean Cup at Warner Park.
This was confirmed today after the Ministry of Sport communicated to the TTFF at a meeting between officials of both organizations on Friday morning that the Ministry will cover the expenses to ensure the eight-time Caribbean champions appear at the 2012 edition of the tournament.
The TTFF was invited to the emergency meeting which took place at 10:30am at the Office of the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sport Mr Ashwin Creed at the Sport Ministry’s Offices.
TTFF General Secretary Richard Groden, TTFF Technical Director Anton Corneal and team administrator William Wallace sat in the meeting with Mr Creed.
Meantime, Senior Team Head coach Hutson Charles will announce his 20-man squad on Saturday and will have a final training session on home soil including a training match against W Connection from 9am on Sunday at the Larry Gomes Stadium.
T&T will have to do without the services of Khaleem Hyland who suffered a hamstring injury during the warm up ahead of Racing Genk’s UEFA Europa League fixture versus FC Basel on Thursday. Columbus Crew defender Julius James is also out with a shoulder injury while Kevin Molino is unavailable.
T&T will however have US-based duo Keon Daniel and Carlyle Mitchell for the three-match tournament as well as Vietnam-based players Hughtun Hector and Willis Plaza. Kazakhstan-based defender Robert Primus will also join the squad.
T&T plays its opening game of Group 5 on Wednesday from 5pm against French Guyana at Warner Park.
Hyland going off with the injury on Thursday
The schedules of the other five groups were announced on August 28 along with the qualifying procedure. The winners from each of the five groups along with the runners-up from Groups 1-3 will advance to the second round. The best runner-up from either Group 4 or Group 5 also will advance.
The second round will comprise three groups of four teams with Grenada, Guadeloupe and Cuba seeded in one of the groups.
The top two teams from each second-round group will advance to the finals December 3-16 in Antigua & Barbuda with the host nation and two-time defending champion Jamaica. Four teams will qualify for next year's CONCACAF Gold Cup.