Salaries will be paid- John-Williams

His com­ment comes amidst a re­port that the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion's ac­count was frozen re­cent­ly by a court or­der af­ter John-Williams failed to ho­n­our a rul­ing by the High Court in No­vem­ber of last year, to paid mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Fut­sal team monies owed for salaries, per diem, match fees and mis­cel­la­neous oth­er ex­pens­es that amount­ed to $475,743 plus le­gal fees of $69,200.82.

The mat­ter now lies square­ly in the hands of TTFA at­tor­ney An­nand Misir, as he goes full speed ahead with an ap­peal of the de­ci­sion.

John-Williams main­tained he and his as­so­ci­a­tion have had ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with the agree­ment made be­tween the Fut­sal coach Clay­ton Mor­ris and then TTFA pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee.

Yes­ter­day Guardian Me­dia Sports re­ceived a copy of the tran­script from the court which showed Mor­ris ad­mit­ting he was cho­sen by Tim Kee as part of a steer­ing com­mit­tee back in 2013 to pre­pare a na­tion­al team for the first time. The ap­point­ments were strict­ly ver­bal and did not have doc­u­men­ta­tion to show the John-Williams-led ad­min­is­tra­tion when they as­sumed of­fice back in No­vem­ber of 2015.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed ap­peared to have ho­n­oured the agree­ment be­tween the par­ties and was par­tic­u­lar­ly an­noyed when the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent in­struct­ed his at­tor­ney to ap­peal the de­ci­sion, though he had ini­tial­ly asked for 28 days to make the pay­ment.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed's de­ci­sion to or­der the TTFA's bank- First Cit­i­zens to freeze its ac­count, was made last month. The bank was giv­en a date of April 4 to ap­pear in court with a state­ment of the TTFA's ac­count.

John-Williams in a re­lease yes­ter­day said his as­so­ci­a­tion just does not have the funds to pay the debt.

" Un­for­tu­nate­ly the fund­ing is just not there at this time to ser­vice these debts, but we at the TTFA con­tin­ue to sol­dier on, hence the rea­son for em­pha­sis on com­plet­ing the Ho­tel and the Home of Foot­ball which will be a ma­jor in­come gen­er­a­tion project not just for foot­ball but will change the face of sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

He not­ed the TTFA has been in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion be­fore, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Graph­ic Ad­ver­tis­ing was suc­cess­ful in get­ting their ac­count frozen two years ago. Ac­cord­ing to the TTFA state­ment "Doc­u­ments on the ac­tion tak­en by per­sons who have ap­proached the court to have in­struc­tions is­sued to freeze the bank ac­counts of the TTFA last Fri­day was re­ceived on Mon­day, March 18th 2019. We at the TTFA have in­her­it­ed a debt of over 30 mil­lion dol­lars in­curred by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions and con­tin­ue the up­hill task of ad­dress­ing that fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, while al­so ad­dress­ing the on­go­ing op­er­at­ing re­quire­ments of the As­so­ci­a­tion."

It added "The facts are that while these are not debts cre­at­ed by the David John Williams Ad­min­is­tra­tion, they re­main the debt of the TTFA. We are very mind­ful of those whose sole agen­da is to de­stroy T&T Foot­ball by their ac­tions, but un­der no cir­cum­stances shall they de­rive such a re­sult."

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Relieved Warriors get match fee hike from TTFA, look forward to Wales clash.
By Lasana Liburd (Wired868).

The Trinidad and Tobago National Senior Team players can keep their attentions firmly on the task at hand in Wrexham this Wednesday, after they were assured of a pay hike for their international friendly against Wales.

The Soca Warriors had their fees cut from US$1,000 per match for much of this millennium to just US$300 by TTFA president David John-Williams in November 2017. The low fee, coupled with late payments, prompted players to threaten a boycott of Wednesday’s friendly in Wales, which could feature Real Madrid star and four-time European Champions League winner Gareth Bale.

However, even before head coach Dennis Lawrence selected his final 22-man squad for the marquee affair for the twin island republic, John-Williams was able to hammer out a truce. The new arrangement, according to one player who spoke on condition of anonymity, is a pay structure of US$1,000 for the starting team, US$700 for players who come off the bench and US$500 for unused substitutes.

“The guys are relieved and are just hoping to get a time for the money to be paid, as nothing has been confirmed yet,” the anonymous Warriors player told Wired868. “I’m looking forward to the game. For me, it’s one of those opportunities that don’t come often; so I’m ready to rumble with one of the world’s best players.”

The national players received no assurances that the offered match fee for Wednesday’s affair would remain in place for future friendlies while a pay structure still has not been confirmed for the 2019 Concacaf Gold Cup, which kicks off in June.

For now, the players are focused on the immediate task. They train today at Everton’s Finch Farm training facilities after an agreement between Lawrence—a former Everton assistant coach—and the Premier Division team’s club secretary, David Harrison.

The anonymous player said they have no illusions about the magnitude of the task. Wales are 19th in the world and playing at home with their entire squad in mid-season while the Warriors are ranked 93rd by FIFA and have just four players—Willis Plaza (Churchill Brothers, India), Khaleem Hyland (Al Faisaly FC, Saudi Arabia), Daneil Cyrus and Lester Peltier (both Al Orobah, Saudi Arabia)—who are at the same stage in their seasons.

But the Warriors are in good spirits and will work as a team.

“It’s not going to be easy but I’m sure the guys are looking forward to the game as much as I am,” said the Warriors player. “[…] It’s going to be a big challenge seeing that a lot of us are out of season or recently started but I have no doubts about what we’re capable of doing as a team.”