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61

General Discussion / Drivers License Thread

« on: December 27, 2020, 12:48:26 PM »

20 licensing officers suspended
By Shaliza Hassanali (T&T Guardian).

At least 20 officers at the Licensing Division are currently under suspension for unethical and fraudulent practices on the job. The disclosure came from Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan days after Transport Commissioner Clive Clarke admitted to Guardian Media that corruption and bobol were rampant at Licensing Offices across the country.

However, Sinanan and the Clarke did not divulge further information as the matters are under investigation and some may even reach as far as the court.

Among the issues Clarke and a small team of licensing officers have been fighting against are duplicate registration of vehicles, buying of driver's permits, and vehicles being fraudulently registered.

Asked about the fraudulent matters that have tarnished the reputation of Licensing Office for years, Sinanan, speaking in the presence of Clarke at his Port-of-Spain office on Tuesday, said the problem stemmed from the division's archaic paper-based system.

In 2017, Sinanan said, the ministry began rooting out corruption when they started to computerise the system.

"There was a lot of pushback because some people did not want that to happen. And that exercise has shown a lot of the flaws in the system. We are getting to the point where we will be able to identify the people who are doing it. Over the last two years, we have had about over 20 people who have been under investigation for these unethical practices and we continue to be stern on that," Sinanan said.

"There is no service at the Licensing Office where you have to pay an employee to help you."

He said if there was a demand for unethical practices, supply will always be high.

"There will only be corrupt officers at the Licensing Office if there is a demand for them. The problem at the Licensing Office is that the system allowed for that because nobody wants to go to the office and spend two and three days to get a simple thing like a transfer done."

Sinanan said if the owner of a truck loses three days' work valued $6,000 to get a truck inspected, "you wouldn't think it hard to pay somebody $1,000 to bring that certificate home for you cause you can save $5,000. Those were some of the things that were happening."

In a bid to reduce delays and long lines, he said his ministry has begun to offer online services.

"So you should only have to go to the Licensing Office if you have a problem."

Next year, he said, mobile licensing units will drive into rural communities to offer services to members of the public.

"We are going to have that in the first or second quarter of 2021 where in all the rural areas these mobile units will drive in on specific dates so nobody would have to leave their area to come into Port-of-Spain, Arima, or Sangre Grande to get simple things done."

Minister disappointed a PoS cashiers failed to show up for work, leaving longs lines of frustrated cutomers

Sinanan also expressed disappointment on Tuesday that two cashiers at the Port-of -Spain Licensing Office did not show up for work, causing long lines and frustrated customers.

"If the systems have to work, public servants must be part and parcel of success. This morning (Tuesday) was a clear case of where the public servants failed the ministry. This was another case of public servants dropping the ball."

Clarke said licensing normally has two regular cashiers on duty but they applied for leave.

The two replacement cashiers, however, also failed to show up for work.

He said a cashier from the Caroni's Licensing Office had to be shifted to Port-of-Spain to ease up the congestion.

"The challenge we had in my view is that the information (the absence of the cashiers) should have reached the authorities much earlier. And we have put things in place to address that. In other words, we are saying if by 8 am you discovered there was a deficiency that should have been triggered so we have someone there."

Clarke said this incident was nothing more than a communication breakdown.

He said customers should have more than one option to pay for a service,

Next July, Clarke said, all Licensing Offices will be equipped with self-service kiosks. In the event a cashier stays home, a customer can still make a payment using their credit or debit cards.

Clarke added, "In the past, though, what we discovered with the systems at licensing is that a number of the ills that took place, there were no proper audit trails. You had evidence disappearing."

He said measures have since been put in place to scan critical documents such as transfer and applications form.

"So because of these computerised transactions we can now trace the individuals. Because of the digitisation process, we can trace beyond the person who is punching the information into the computer because sometimes they are the least involved. Sometimes it may be other entities and we could not trace and track signatures and the workflow," Clarke said.

62

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Adopted American woman discovers she’s a Sierra Leone princess

« on: December 19, 2020, 06:40:41 PM »

Adopted American woman discovers she’s a Sierra Leone princess
DeMicia Inman
Fri, December 18, 2020, 5:58 PM EST

Sarah Culberson began searching for her biological family at 28 years old and found she is related to African royalty in Sierra Leone

Sarah Culberson was adopted and raised by a white family in West Virginia and uncovered a rich history in her search for her birth family.

NBC News reported at the age of 28-years-old, Culberson began her search when she learned her biological mother died when she was only 11. After a phone call from an uncle, she learned she was related to African royalty. According to the news outlet, she is from the Mende tribe in Bumpe, Sierra Leone, and is considered a mahaloi, the child of a paramount chief. This makes Culberson the princess of the Bumpe village.

Hundreds of people came out to celebrate her return during a special ceremony in 2006 where her biological father gifted her a dress that matched his own suit. Culberson shared with the news outlet that although a royal title sounds glamorous, learning her identity came with responsibility.

“My only guidance of what a princess was was what I saw in movies,” Culberson said to NBC News. “[But] it’s really about responsibility. It’s about walking in my great-grandfather and grandfather’s footsteps and what they’ve done for the country. I realized that’s my role as a princess, to keep moving things forward in the country.”

Her adoptive father, James Culberson, a neurobiology professor at West Virginia University, told the outlet her passion for people was natural.

“Sarah was an outgoing, people-meeting, 1-year-old when we adopted her. She is still that same outgoing person who genuinely loves and enjoys almost everyone she meets,” he said. ” “Almost from her first visit to Sierra Leone to meet her father, she saw her ‘princess’ role as one involving trying to find some way to help. She certainly recognized her close connection to a family and chiefdom and country; her work to improve life there has demonstrated tremendous personal growth in many areas.”

Together with her biological brother Hindo Kposowa, Culberson founded the Kposowa Foundation (now called Sierra Leone Rising) in 2006 to rebuild Bumpe High School and advocate for education in the country. According to the organization’s website, it focuses on education, public health, and female empowerment.

According to NBC News, Sierra Leone Rising has provided nine wells, serving 12,000 people across the country, and is working to support menstruating people with reusable pads and working to slow the spread of COVID-19 with a new initiative Mask On Africa.

“I was like, ‘OK, let’s do this. I’m willing to do the work. Whatever it takes.’ This nonprofit has brought all of us together in such a wonderful way,” Culberson said to the news outlet. “My birth father and I have done a lot of work together with the foundation, along with my brother. I stepped out into a space that has been very new for me and has challenged me in many ways.”

In 2009, she wrote the book, A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All to expand on her story. According to NBC News, an animated series is in the works as well as a film produced by Stephanie Allain. Although she lives in the United States, Culberson frequently discusses moving to Sierra Leone with her boyfriend, the outlet reported.

“It was such a life-altering experience,” she said of her initial visit. “It was shocking, amazing, overwhelming, exciting. It was beautiful, glorious and uplifting!”


Image via sarahculberson.com / Brandon Flint Photography)

63

Football / Scoring directly from a corner-kick Thread.

« on: December 13, 2020, 03:43:40 PM »

Never seen a T&T player who scored directly from a corner kick until now.

I know Stephen Hart told me once that Alvin Corneal use to do it, but that was before my time.

Levi Garcia scores an Olimpico (direct from a corner kick) in AEK Athens FC's 4-3 win over Apollon

64

Cricket Anyone / Cricket in America Thread

« on: December 02, 2020, 12:33:29 AM »

Welcome LA Knight Riders.
T&T Guardian Reports.

Cricket in America has received a major shot in the arm with the arrival of the Knight Riders franchise.

CEO of Red Chillies Entertainment the owners of the Knight Riders brand, Venky Mysore speaking on the cricket site cricket360.org Tuesday said that the brand has come into America and will be taking part in the USA Cricket Major League tournament.

Mysore said, "We are happy to be involved. We have a major sports brand and the people there reached out to us. We were interested and then got sold on the idea after we saw the business model.

"We will be taking the LA (Los Angeles) franchise but more than that we will be part owners of the league. In the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) where we own the franchise Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR), we run that and only that assisting in making the league a success. However, now we have a stake in the league as well and all owners will have a stake which is good."

The highly respected Mysore has been included on the American Cricket Entertainment (ACE) board which owns the league.

 "I am on the board and will lend my experience to the set-up," said Mysore, who explained that the move by the Knight Riders brand was done to as a result as their development model.

"When you look at IPL it is condensed within a two-month period. Then you look at CPL and it goes for about six weeks. I told the owners that in order to take their brand forward, they needed to go worldwide because if you own five or six franchises then you will have cricket being all the time around the year. It means that the brand will be out there all the time, your fan base will grow, and economically it will work out well for us."

Red Chillies Entertainment owns the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) in the CPL, and the Cape Town Knight Riders in South Africa. They will now be the owners of the LA Knight Riders in the US Major League. The tournament is expected to be played for the first time in June/July 2022.

"As I have told the other board members, there is an old saying that you only have one chance to make a first impression. So let's take our time and make sure that this is done properly. That time around June/July will be the summertime and it will be great to host this tournament. It means that it comes in between the IPL and the CPL which will work fine for the brand," said Mysore.


Venky Mysore, CEO of Red Chillies Entertainment the owners of the Knight Riders brand.

65

Football / Black Lives Matter Football Thread.

« on: November 18, 2020, 09:07:18 AM »

How Britain is losing the race: what Yorke, Hislop, Sancho and more faced in UK.
By Lasana Liburd (Wired868).

This report was initially written by Lasana Liburd for the Trinidad Express newspaper and published there on 25 November 2004:

It was not, as Birmingham City chairman David Sullivan pointed out, the ‘crime of the century’. The British Soccernet website claimed that the Blackburn Football Club, the site of the latest racial incident in the British game, harboured just two racist fans.

Some Blackburn supporters claimed there was just one.

In any case, Sullivan insisted that it was no big deal and suggested that Trinidad and Tobago’s Dwight Yorke, effectively his employee, should have ignored it rather than confront the offending patrons.

Unanimously, the British media insisted that the monkey gestures and racist taunts aimed at the T&T star and Birmingham striker on Sunday were ‘small’, ‘isolated’ and, most importantly, ‘nothing like Spain’.

Last Wednesday in Madrid, thousands of Spanish fans made sickening monkey chants whenever a black Englishman touched the ball. Spain was quickly branded an ‘uncivilised nation’ by the British press and Professional Footballers Association (PFA) chief executive Gordon Taylor insisted that the English team should have walked off the field.

Tellingly, he did not say how many fans need to be making racial jibes before a team could head for the showers in good conscience.

Perhaps there were too few in Yorke’s case; which, of course, was an isolated one. Like Ron Atkinson’s gaffe, for instance.

Atkinson—who ironically coached Yorke at Aston Villa in the early ‘90s, where he sometimes ordered players to punch and kick Yorke to toughen him up at training sessions—infamously referred to former France captain and World Cup winner, Marcel Desailly, as a ‘f**king, lazy, thick nigger’ in the ITV television studio after a Champions League match this April.

The microphone was still on, though, and ‘Big Ron’ was asked to resign and complied.

It was not Atkinson’s first racial jibe as a television commentator. He once referred to a Cameroon player as brainless during the 1990 World Cup. His producers quickly chided him but Atkinson got in the last word during the interval. “Well if his mother is watching up a tree in Africa…”

Once more, his comments were inadvertently broadcast live in some countries and ITV received a complaint, but Atkinson remained on staff. That Ron Atkinson, they chuckle, never knows when to keep quiet.

There are other recent cases.

Dundee and Trinidad and Tobago defender Brent Sancho was called ‘a black bastard’ and hauled out of a taxi last October; but after a fight ensued, Sancho and not his racist assailant was thrown into a cell and charged. (Sancho was later acquitted).

Fulham striker Luis Boa Morte was called ‘a black c**t’ by Everton forward Duncan Ferguson in a Premiership match last season and reported the matter to the English FA.

But the FA dismissed the case for lack of evidence and the papers suggested that Boa Morte was a mischief-maker, which prompted a flood of abuse for the Portuguese striker by visiting fans.

“There were people on my team who heard it and there were people on the Everton team who heard it too,” said Boa Morte, “but they didn’t want to say anything. I had two or three really low weeks, I felt gutted.

“Why would I have taken it to the FA if the thing didn’t happen?”

Another one-off, I suppose. But how many isolated incidents do it take before the relevant authorities accept that there is a problem?

Racist chants at the Millwall Football Club last season; English international defender Jonathan Woodgate convicted for assaulting an Asian student in a nightclub; Newcastle and Welsh striker Craig Bellamy racially abused an Asian door man… A 2003 University report, supported by the PFA, found systematic exclusion of minorities at community clubs and ‘extremely poor’ numbers of non-whites in managerial and staff positions at football clubs.

It might not amount to much for some influential figures like Sullivan, but it means a great deal to the rest of us. It certainly means a great deal to me.

Racism in football, even the vile stuff we observed when Jamaica-born ex-England and Liverpool star John Barnes was routinely pelted with bananas, is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Manchester United star Rio Ferdinand recalled that he would be stopped and questioned roughly ten times a week by the police when he drove across London from Peckham to West Ham for training as a teenager-barely seven years ago.

Trinidad and Tobago and Portsmouth goalkeeper Shaka Hislop remembered when, at Newcastle, a group of youths screamed racial insults and ran towards him in a threatening manner at a gas station. Then, they recognised him and subsequently begged for autographs.

So what of blacks who are unprotected by celebrity status in England?

Those still referred to in some quarters here, as ‘darkie’, ‘coloured’ and ‘negro’—and those are the affectionate references.

It is not like Spain—or at least what we saw of them at that shameful international match—that is undisputed. But this does not necessarily mean it is significantly better.

The Race Relations Act, passed in 1976, makes it an offence to racially abuse or assault someone, which can result to the offender being expelled from a bar or sporting ground or, in violent cases, jailed up to 14 years.

While the British Government and anti-racists groups have made progress in silencing racists, there is the feeling that insufficient headway has been made in converting them. By and large, it has allowed passive racism to fester.

On Saturday, I was ejected from a train while returning from an afternoon in Birmingham. The train conductor suggested—rather vaguely—that I had stolen or fraudulently acquired my rail pass, although I had the relevant travel documents on me.

After a lively debate, in which I refused to pay a fine, I was told that we would stop at then next station to locate a policeman to which I readily agreed. Once we had both disembarked, the conductor hopped back on the train, though, leaving me at a desolate and extremely cold stop.

I have already arranged a meeting with Central Trains to pursue the matter, but it was not an isolated case.

Once, the Portsmouth Football Club secretary, when trying to describe me over the telephone to an official enlisted to take me towards the players’ dressing rooms, curiously explained to his listener: ‘you will know him when you see him’.

But, generally, you are made to feel an outsider without words.

Like the young white couple I attempted to help as they struggled to keep their stalled car from rolling down a hill in the early evening.

On seeing my approach, the lady left her male companion with the weight of the vehicle on his back and sprinted to the other side of the car. He gesticulated frantically for me to come no closer.

“No thank you, mate!”

Perhaps Barnes summed it up best last week when he was approached for comment on the Spanish scandal and surprised the journalist by insisting that England was in no position to take the moral high ground.

“Because we don’t hear it any more we think we’re getting rid of racism,” Barnes told the London Observer. “Please, let’s not all believe we’re much better in this country. The biggest thing for me is the hypocrisy of the people who were around 10 or 15 years ago when this was going on in English football.

“Why weren’t they saying anything then? Is it just politically correct to be doing it now?”

Silence, he explained, does not mean harmony.

“When you talk about kicking racism out of football,” he said, “people automatically assume you are talking about on the terraces and on the football field.

“But all racists have to do is keep their mouth shut for 90 minutes and they’re fine. It’s good that people are talking about it, but it’s how they’re talking. Let’s not believe that we are much better in this country.”

Another former Arsenal player and present youth team coach, Paul Davis, revealed that he was overlooked for promotion at Arsenal for the third time last September. Instead, Steve Bould was given the post although he had five years less experience and was markedly less qualified than Davis.

Davis, when he questioned the snub, was told by Arsenal that he did not have the ‘right personality’ for the job.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I obviously can’t say that it was racism because it wasn’t spelt out to me like that, but it wasn’t done properly. There were no appraisals, no proper information on candidates; basically it was one person making the decision.

“But [racism] is the hardest thing to accuse anyone of because how are you gonna prove it?”

Racism is scariest off the football field.

An undercover BBC investigation found ‘shocking and widespread’ racism at the Greater Manchester Police force last October, where policemen were taped boasting of victimising ‘pakis’ and ‘niggers’. Yet Home Secretary and British MP David Blunkett initially slammed the BBC for their ‘covert stunt’ before quickly back-pedalling after condemnation by anti-racism groups.

The BBC documentary was in response to a sharp rise in racially motivated crimes over the past decade. It is the same monster of racial prejudice that reared its head at Blackburn on Sunday.

Sullivan would have us look the other way.

Yorke did not!


Photo: Football fans in Turkey taunt black players with bananas.
(via CNN)


Photo: Former Liverpool and England star John Barnes backheels a banana in an iconic snap.
(via Daily Mail)

66

Football / Preparing part-time players to compete with pros Thread.

« on: November 16, 2020, 09:58:08 AM »

‘Preparing part-time players to compete with pros is a challenge’: T&T’s Caribbean coaching exports speak.
By Lasana Liburd (Wired868).

When, Covid-19 permitting, Stern John leads the Anguilla Men’s National Senior Team out for their opening Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifying contest, he will join a growing number of Trinidad and Tobago coaches looking to make their mark elsewhere in the Caribbean—albeit at less recognisable football nations.

Bertille St Clair made history by becoming the first coach to steer Trinidad and Tobago to a Fifa World Cup tournament, when he guided the ‘Soca Babes’ to the Portugal 1991 World Youth Championship. However, it was St Vincent and the Grenadines who offered him his first senior job.

In 1996, St Clair helped ‘Vincy Heat’ to the Concacaf semifinal round of the 1998 World Cup qualifying. A year later, Trinidad and Tobago hired the ‘Saint’ for a largely successful three-year spell, which saw the twin island republic win two Caribbean Cup titles and finish in the top four of the Concacaf Gold Cup for the first time.

Jamaal Shabazz followed a similar route. He steered Guyana to the Concacaf semifinal round of the 2014 World Cup qualifying round, eliminating the Soca Warriors in the process.

Within a month of Guyana’s own elimination, the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) hired Shabazz, who, as co-head coach alongside Hutson Charles, helped the Warriors to the 2013 Caribbean Cup runner-up title and their first Gold Cup qualification in six years.

Shabazz, now 57 years old, is on the road again, as he took up the reins of the St Lucia job on 6 May 2019. Meanwhile, the 52-year-old Russell Latapy, a former Trinidad and Tobago senior and youth team coach, has led the Barbados football team since 21 March 2019.

And the 36-year-old Rajesh Latchoo, who took Trinidad and Tobago to third place at the 2015 Concacaf Women’s Under-15 Championship before subsequently resigning due to poor working conditions and unpaid stipends, was hired by Dominica on 1 March 2017.

The Fifa/Concacaf rankings do not flatter the trio (there are 210 member associations ranked by Fifa and 35 in Concacaf):

Dominica: When Latchoo took over (175 Fifa/25 Concacaf); now (185/28);

Barbados: When Latapy took over (161 Fifa/18 Concacaf); now (162/19);

St Lucia: When Shabazz took over (170 Fifa/20 Concacaf); now (176/24).

However, it is worth noting that neither Latchoo nor Shabazz have had a single friendly international to help boost their team’s chances, while Latapy’s own warm-up games against Canada—presumably good practice in the long run—were never going to help Barbados’ rankings.

Latapy’s early plaudits next door owe much to Barbados’ first place group finish and promotion from the Concacaf Nations League’s third tier, where they held off the Cayman Islands, Saint Martin and the US Virgin Islands.

Dominica and St Lucia, in contrast, were both relegated from the second tier of the Nations League where they faced tougher opposition than Barbados.

Crucially, all three coaches appear to have the support and respect of their respective football nations as they enter the Qatar 2022 qualifying series.

Latchoo and Shabazz took time out to discuss their experience on the road so far; and what John can expect to face at his new job.

Wired868: What do you see as the biggest challenge on the job?

Latchoo: Preparing ‘part-time’ players to compete against professional players is a challenge. It is not impossible but it is challenging. It requires a lot of planning and improvisation.

Here the players are talented but are in an amateur environment. And with the Covid pandemic, the few ‘professional’ players we had playing in the TT Pro League with Morvant Caledonia United, Cunupia FC and W Connection (all of whom the Dominican people are grateful to them for believing in our players) had to return home and join the pool of amateur footballers.

Meaning they have to find a job during the day to support their families and then train in the evenings with their clubs or Men’s Senior National Team to improve their football abilities. The Panamanian or Dominican Republic players don’t have these problems.

Dominica’s government did an excellent job of dealing with the Covid situation and it allowed the restart of the local amateur league and the MSNT training in preparation for the World Cup qualifiers—both in August.

But the bigger countries seem not to be affected like us by Covid when it comes to playing international friendlies, which is something we struggled with even before Covid.

In fact, Panama were able to play Costa Rica twice in the September Fifa window and defeated them twice 1-0. With the shift of the WCQ to March, it provides an opportunity for a longer preparation time (once the Covid situation remains manageable).

However the challenge remains where the speed and compactness of the local league is not at the same level of the Panama and Dominican Republic leagues, so we try to create that in the MSNT training. But then the amateur reality hits when some key players may occasionally call to let me know they can’t be at the session as they have to work late.

This means that while key players may attend most of the sessions, they still can’t attend every session to ensure they gain maximum exposure to improve their football and physical abilities.

When they miss a session, they are set back three to six days based on the training schedule. So the amateur environment does not allow the players to prepare as well as their upcoming counterparts. We find ourselves like ‘David’ in our big games, mostly hoping to slay ‘Goliath’ teams.

Shabazz: My biggest challenge in the St Lucia job is marrying the vision that the president has for their football and getting the footballing stakeholders to buy in to the steps needed to achieve our objectives.

Every country wants to qualify for a Fifa World Cup but that desire and expectation is seldom backed with the infrastructure and resources needed.

St Lucia may be a small nation but with a big heart and passion for football. In the past, they have produced players like Stuart Charles-Fevrier (now a top coach), Earl Jean, Titus Elva, Elijah Joseph, and Zaine Pierre, who have made a mark in the region.

The clubs in St Lucia are all totally community-based, and it is very rare that players cross borders to represent another district. So in the sight of the villagers, a decent player is seen as a mega star; but a lot of those players find it difficult to adjust to the needs of international football.

There remains a level of insularity when guys are not selected or omitted; and with our introduction of players born overseas, it adds to the challenge.

We literally preach the ‘One Lucia’ concept and St Lucia for Lucians home and abroad. Even in other sports, we are asking the whole country and football to support the national teams in other sporting disciplines when they are playing.

Wired868: What do you enjoy the most about your post?

Latchoo: Witnessing the growth of the environment and players I worked with for the last 44 months. Despite the amateur setting and two major natural disasters (Maria in 2017, Covid in 2020), I am still able to see and speak about the progress of the players’ abilities and their attitude towards training.

The image of the national team has improved a lot. They are a great bunch of players and I wish I had all of them in a professional team somewhere, so we could maximise their potential. I guess that is every coach’s dream.

The Dominican people are wonderful people and very resilient and welcoming, which makes it easy to understand why tourism accounted for almost 50% of their GDP before Hurricane Maria. I fell in love with the people of Dominica and will remain here until God is ready for me to move elsewhere.

While the growth here may seem to be slow and incremental, the changes are also permanent and adaptive. And this would be understandable as the DFA, for the first time, would have had a lot of staff being employed full time in the last four years: like the technical director, women’s coordinator, youth director, general secretary and national men’s coach. So they are still in the developmental stages of progress.

I am glad God was able to make me a part of this process and allowed me to work with great people, especially my president, Glen Etienne who has supported me a lot.

In our last Concacaf Nations League second tier game versus St Vincent and the Grenadines, our 17-year-old striker, Audel Laville, scored the winning goal. It was a great moment for the future of Dominica football.

Shabazz: I enjoy the challenge on going into another Caribbean country and helping to elevate the program, as we did in Guyana. In 2005 when I went to Guyana, people laughed at the Guyanese on and off the field. Now on the field, Trinidad and Tobago cannot beat Guyana; and off the field, due to oil, Trini businessmen are flocking to Guyana.

So its a similar purpose in St Lucia, which is to utilise football as a vehicle to develop our people.

The adrenalin flow you get from the tension when a whole nation is looking to your team (staff and players) for a result is addictive. The thrill in winning, the disappointment in losing and having to pick yourself up, your team and a country and provide renewed hope, is an eventful and very fulfilling  journey.

Wired868: What is your ambition in your current job and beyond?

Latchoo: The long term ambition, like all coaches, would be to qualify the team to a World Cup, whereas the short to medium term goals would be to win the Windward Island Football Association Tournament (we were 2nd in 2017 and 3rd in 2019); re-qualify for the second tier in the Concacaf Nations League and qualify for the Concacaf Gold Cup.

The passport law here does not allow for second generation (grand children) players born and living outside of Dominica to easily receive their passport through descent. Only first generation Dominicans can do so. Thus I am in the process of helping the local coaches improve the level of the league for 2021, and I continue to seek opportunities to ‘export’ players to professional leagues.

Importantly, I will continue to the grow the game in Dominica to the best of my ability. I would like to help Caribbean football grow, so that the talent we have in the Caribbean can match up to any ‘powerhouse’ team. This is what working in the Caribbean as a young coach means to me.

It is good to see that we have many of our own Caribbean coaches and experts who have played or are playing an integral part in the development of Caribbean football.

I’m thinking about Anton Corneal, Jamaal Shabazz, Marlon Charles, Dennis Lawrence, Stephen Hart, Russell Latapy, Derek King, Theodore Whitmore, Lincoln Phillips, Alvin Corneal, ‘Gally’ Cummings, Stuart Charles-Fevrier, the late Muhammad Isa, Anthony ‘Dada’ Wickham, Lenny Lake, Vin Blaine, and my list can go on and on.

These people serve as an inspiration to young coaches like myself. They have influenced me in some way, directly or indirectly, and one day I hope to be able to contribute to the Caribbean football as they did or are doing.

Without them and many others, young coaches like myself and Earl Jean, would not exist today.

Shabazz: Of course international football is based on results and qualifying for major tournaments. In between, there are stages where you move from participation to being able to compete against the bigger countries; and then on any given day get results. So we have an aim to move from tier three to tier one.

Plus our under-17 team is extremely talented and there is that ambition to help get this team to the Fifa Under-17 or Under-20 World Cup.

Of course you have to ensure you keep your job and ensure the association gives you the necessary support.

So far, I cannot ask for a better president than Lyndon Cooper; and that is not a paid political announcement.

Road to Qatar 2022 (Only the group winners advance to the next qualifying round):

Group D: Panama, Dominican Republic, Barbados, Dominica, Anguilla;

Group E: Haiti, Nicaragua, Belize, St Lucia, Turks and Caicos Islands;

Group F: Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, Guyana, Puerto Rico, Bahamas.

67

Football / 2021 T&T Super League Thread

« on: October 30, 2020, 11:40:52 AM »

Rigues summons TTSL membership to elect leader.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

For the second time in nine months, football's general membership will be called upon to decide on the way forward in local football.

First, the T&T Football Association's (TTFA) general membership was needed to chart a way forward in the midst of a heated battle between the sport's world governing body, FIFA, and the TTFA being led by William Wallace, which subsequently resulted in the TTFA bein suspended from FIFA until further notice.

Now, the membership of the T&T Super League (TTSL) is being summoned to a meeting to decide on whether Jameson Rigues, the TTSL's First vice president will be the person to take over the leadership of the organisation, following the resignation of its president Keith Look Loy on October 16. The meeting was called by Rigues, who to date, appears not to have been accepted by the Board of Directors of the TTSL, as the person to take over the reigns of the organisation.

Immediately after the submission of the resignation letter, the board took a decision to ask Look Loy to stay on until the next Annual General Meeting (AGM), which Guardian Media Sports was told is likely to be in December. However, although Look Loy, the controversial TTFA member who was caught smack in the centre of the TTFA vs FIFA dispute, rejected the call for his return, the Board appears to be making a second call for the former president to stay on.

Rigues is now pointing the membership to Article 39.7 of the Constitution that would put him in charge. A release sent out yesterday from Rigues, states: "In keeping with the TTSL Constitution, Article 39.7, in my capacity as First Vice-President, I have assumed the responsibilities of President of the TTSL with immediate effect, with the resignation of Mr. Keith Look Loy.

The TTSL Constitution, Article 39.7 - If the position of the President becomes vacant, the First Vice-President shall assume the President's responsibilities until the next General Meeting. This General Meeting shall elect a new President for the remaining period of office."

He noted further: "I wish to put on record my humble view and stated position that any such decision of recall or non-acceptance of the resignation of the President should have been brought to you the membership for any such consideration. Having accepted the duties and responsibilities of the TTSL presidency, I wish to personally invite you, each member of the TTSL to contact me directly with any and all matters you consider important to your Organization and the TTSL which I shall properly review."

One Board member who spoke on condition of anonymity on Wednesday said he is unsure of what the problem is with Rigues, since he is currently holding the position of interim president. The member, from of the top eight TTSL club, said he is unsure whether the Board could have opted to call on Look Loy to return when instead of following exactly what the constitution says, but he believes they should. He made it clear however that the membership will have the final say.

He told Guardian Media Sports that Rigues was among the Board meeting which decided on a recall of Look Loy.

Rigues said in spite of the constitutional breach he will not consider legal action, as T&T football needs to take a break from court matters now, in light of the recent legal battle between the TTFA and the FIFA.

However, he is promising members that if he is elected president at the AGM he will be president for all of the TTSL and not some. "I also intend for the organisation to be transparent always, the organisation must be a democratic and unbiased organisation. I personally would like to work to ensure the organisation is more advanced and more competitive," Rigues said.

68

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / MovieTowne Thread.

« on: October 12, 2020, 12:55:00 AM »

MovieTowne Chaguanas falls victim to COVID-19
T&T Guardian Reports.

MovieTowne has announced it will be closing its Chaguanas branch permanently after being in operation for over 10 years.

In a statement to the media, MovieTowne’s owner Derek Chin said, “I wish to inform you that we will be closing our MovieTowne Chaguanas branch for good as the pandemic along with MovieTowne’s landlord has made it uneconomical for us to continue.”

According to Chin, the government’s restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 contributed to the decision.

He said that the extended shutdown and the continued uncertainty has made it extremely difficult to continue. He said the decision was taken in the interest of keeping MovieTowne’s overall business in a survival mode.

“We felt this was the best alternative for us,” he stated.

The Chaguanas MovieTowne, located in Price Plaza, is one of five run by the Daichin Group of Companies, of which Chin is the chairman.

The other operations are in Port-of-Spain, C3 Centre in San Fernando, Lowlands, Tobago, and Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana.

Chin said in the statement that MovieTowne’s other Trinidad and Tobago locations will reopen when the restrictions are relaxed.

“We wish to thank our many Central and Chaguanas patrons for the support over the last 10 years,” he stated.

The Chaguanas branch has been home to a cineplex of eight large screens, offering 2D and 3D cinema technology.

However, unlike the flagship Port-of-Spain branch, the Daichin Group does not own the entire compound, to offer dining, liming, shopping and live entertainment.

Cinemas were among the earlier closures when the Government introduced COVID-19 restrictions in March, because of the risks involved with the congregation of people.

In June, with a big reduction in the spread of COVID-19 cases, the government allowed cinemas to reopen. Most cinemas, however, offered old movies since the international distribution of new shows was also affected by COVID-19.

However, with new cases springing up in August, the State opted to once again close movie theatres.

They have remained closed until now and operators will only know if they can reopen their doors, when the Prime Minister reports to the country again on October 24.

Chaguanas Mayor Faaiq Mohammed described the announcement as a sad day for the borough. Responding to Guardian Media via WhatsApp yesterday, Mohammed said that the development is ‘troubling’.

“We lost a good source of entertainment for families and friends. It’s troubling to see businesses close knowing many will be unemployed as a result. It is disheartening that I heard this news and we will have to examine other areas to ensure the sustainability of other businesses within the Borough. In addition to the effects of COVID it was reported that there is a private issue between Mr Chin and the Landlord so I wish to say no more on the matter,” Mohammed said.

Meanwhile, 58 additional people have been infected with COVID-19.

This was according to yesterday’s clinical update from the Ministry of Health. According to the release, this brings the total number of positive cases in the country to 5,101.

However, the total number of active cases is 1,753 while the total number of deaths remained at 90.

The statement said that 119 people remained hospitalised while 37 are in step-down facilities, 46 in state quarantine facilities and 1,597 are in home self-isolation.

Thus far, 3,252 people have recovered from the virus.

The ministry reminded that the daily update usually reflects samples taken during the last three days and not the last 24 hours.

69

Football / Shaqkeem Joseph Thread

« on: October 05, 2020, 04:39:23 PM »

Club Sando's Joseph on trials in Portugal.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

Shaqkeem Joseph, a multitalented midfield/striker from Club Sando is on trials in Portugal with First Division Club Futebol Clube da Maia.

The 20-year old player left last week in search of his life-long dream to be a professional footballer, Club Sando's owner and managing director Eddison Deane has said.

He told Guardian Media Sports on Monday, that the young player has been a sought-after player by clubs and football agents across the world for the past months. However, the club's partnership with Three-D, a United States and Canadian football agency, has enabled him the opportunity to pick the best choice, in terms of club stability, the potential for growth and player-satisfaction.

Deane said he is unable to say how long the player's stay at the Portuguese club will be, as he was snapped up and sent to Portugal on a one-way ticket. "This I imagine means that he will be there for as long as the club wants him to stay, or he will not come back. He is an excellent little player whom I feel confident about abroad," Deane said.

Joseph is a former national Under-20 player under Russell Latapy and was also a member of the Senior team training squad under Terry Fenwick. He was also a standout player at Moruga Composite in the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) about three years ago before he moved to North East Stars in the T&T Pro League.

He was later snapped up by Club Sando where he has worked under Angus Eve, who Deane considers to be one of the country's best youth coaches. Deane is a believer in developing young players and called on all clubs to focus on the development of the young players during our suspension from international football by the sport's world governing body- FIFA.

Deane, a Naparima College old boy, said he is such a believer in development that he works with his alma mater to produced complete players for club and country. He explained that being deep into the school system, he places more emphasis on youth development, saying if clubs follow this approach, the country will be well served and ready when the suspension is lifted, whenever that will be.

"If we focus on the senior players now, what will happen is that they will be too old when the FIFA suspension is up and they will not be able to represent the country at World Cup Qualifiers or other qualifiers, therefore, put that time towards the youths, then they will be ready in time for the qualifiers."

70

General Discussion / Farmers in T&T Thread

« on: October 03, 2020, 03:45:51 PM »

T&T cocoa farmers earn $18 million in two years
RYAN HAMILTON-DAVIS (NEWSDAY).

BETWEEN 2018 and 2019, cocoa farmers have garnered $17.9 million in exports.

So said Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon, during the launch of the second National Cocoa Awards, held virtually on Friday.

In her address, she added that up to August this year, T&T cocoa farmers have made about $4.6 million in revenue.

“Our cocoa beans are of premium value and gains significant revenue,” Gopee-Scoon said.

She said TT's major export markets are in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and the United States. She added that the top three exporters of local cocoa earns about $500,000 annually.

“This is gratifying as it shows an international palate exists for local cocoa,” Gopee-Scoon said.

Minister of Agriculture Clarence Rambharat, while lauding the farmers' successes internationally, said funding and technological support will be provided to cocoa farmers to encourage more cultivation and value adding to the popular bean.

But importantly, Rambharat promised to do more for land security for cocoa farmers.

“We have to keep farmers productive and we have to ensure that their land is secure,” Rambharat said.

Cocoa Development T&T director Jacqueline Robins boasted that T&T cocoa farmers are among the top farmers of the bean in the world having been received eight international cocoa awards – the most collected among any other country in the world.

“This clearly validates our superiority in cocoa,” Robins said.

Last year’s winners, Leroy and Geeta Peters said they were surprised when their names were called as the best producers of cocoa in the country. After their win, they said they got a lot of support from the community, friends and family.

“I come from a cocoa family. My wife as well,” Leroy Peters said. “When we heard we were winners it was out of this world. I always knew we had excellent beans.”

71

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Sprangalang dies at 72

« on: October 03, 2020, 03:43:48 PM »

Sprangalang dies at 72
By Sharlene Rampersad (Guardian).

Popular comedian, actor, radio talk show host and entertainer Dennis “Sprangalang” Hall is dead.

Hall, 72, died at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope yesterday, where he was receiving medical attention after being hospitalised last week.

Guardian Media tried reaching Hall’s wife, Natasha “Sexy Suzie” Nurse but was told she was too distraught to speak.

Hall’s former co-worker at the Talk City radio station, Gerelle Forbes, said Nurse was also not in the best of health.

“She is not well too. There is nothing to say until tomorrow, she will go deal with the paperwork,” Forbes said.

Forbes said Hall’s legacy speaks for itself.

“Sprang’s life is everything that can be said. The man gave his entire life for this country, there is nothing again you can say about him. His living was his life for us,” she said.

Several members of the cultural fraternity took to social media to pay tribute to the cultural icon after learning of his passing yesterday.

The Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation (TUCO) sent out condolences to Hall’s family in a Facebook post, saying “The President, National Executive and membership of TUCO wish to express our condolences and sympathy to the family of Mr. Dennis Hall known in the entertainment world as “Sprangalang” who passed away on the evening of 2nd October, 2020 at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.”

Hall was a lifetime member of TUCO, the post said.

Owner of WACK Radio, Kenny Phillips, also sent out condolences, saying, “Hall had been battling illness for a while and his wife Natasha had asked the public to pray for him earlier this week.”

Hall, who celebrated his birthday on September 30, is best known for his observational comedy, a trait that earned him spots in local film productions and commercials as well as runs in top calypso tents, including the Calypso Revue. He also dabbled in Soca Parang and had several big hits, including Bring Drinks, Grrrttt and Poppits.

Hall’s brother, playwright Tony Hall died suddenly earlier this year.

72

General Discussion / Stock Exchange Thread

« on: September 25, 2020, 02:32:45 AM »

T&T Stock Exchange embraces digital technology
T&T Guardian Reports.

Acting CEO of the The Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange (TTSEC), Lystra Lucillio has said the securities market has, and continues to contribute significantly to the country’s GDP.

She said as at July 31, 2020 the securities market was valued at over TT$325 billion--approximately twice the size of T&T’s GDP for 2018.

Lucillio who was speaking at the launch of the commission’s Electronically Advanced Submission interface or EASi platform said TTSEC’s role as the regulator of the securities industry began some 23 years ago, in 1997.

At that time, there were 77 registrants since then, both the market and the number of market players have grown significantly as to date, there are over 570 registrants.

“In the midst of this digital era and rapidly evolving securities industry, we are adapting our traditional processes to better meet the needs of our market participants as well as investors and potential investors.

“Several international regulators have already been utilising technological platforms to engage with and regulate their markets,” Lucillio said.

She said the EASi platform is aligned with the commission’s vision to be an agile and effective regulator by using technology to transition into a digital economy.

“This transformation for the TTSEC involves the utilisation of digital technology to enhance the way in which we collect, process and develop reports. In essence, it can be considered a type of supervisory technology or SupTech,”Lucillio explained.

EASi also ties into the Commission’s “Go Green” initiative, aimed at adopting a more sustainable and cost-efficient work environment, as it will significantly reduce the use of paper and delivery cost.

Going forward, the commission will be advancing the capabilities within the EASi platform to:

1. Enable Registrants to submit Micro and Macro Prudential Reporting (MMRF) Forms;

2. Leverage the business intelligence features; and

3. Further generate comparative statistics, and analyse data.

“The TTSEC is bridging the gap between regulation and economic development, and making it easier and more efficient to do business in T&T,” Lucillio added.

73

General Discussion / Male enhancement Thread.

« on: September 23, 2020, 05:00:53 PM »

More younger men using Viagra compared to older men
JULIEN NEAVES (NEWSDAY).

MORE younger men have been using erectile dysfunction medication Viagra compared to older men, said medical director of St Ann's Psychiatric Hospital Dr Samuel Shafe.

He was speaking Wednesday during a virtual meeting of the Rotary Club of Port of Spain and giving a presentation on mental health and men.

He said some of the mental health issues faced by men include depression; substance abuse (typically a co-problem); anxiety disorder; sleep disorder; mood disorder; schizophrenia, which is the most difficult to manage; and sexual disorders. He explained the sexual disorders men experience are male erectile disorder, premature ejaculation, sexual desire disorder and impotence.

Shafe said it is assumed that mostly older men were using Viagra, but more younger men in their 20s and 30s have been using the medication.

"A lot of younger men are using the sex-enhancing medication compared to older men."

He said the sexual disorders would affect the psychology of the man and could have a devastating impact on them, especially if they are in a relationship.

"It can lead to stress in a relationship, low self-esteem, irritability, aggressive behaviour and problems with the relationship."

Shafe stressed erectile dysfunction may also be due to a medical condition, difficulty in a relationship or inability to trust.

The drug Sildenafil, which has been sold under the brand Viagra since 1998, is a common medication used to stimulate erections in men with erectile dysfunction and to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension.

74

Football / Spain Football Thread.

« on: September 04, 2020, 03:55:16 AM »

Barca wonderkid Fati becomes Spain's youngest player in 84 years with international bow
Yahoo News

Barcelona's teenage star Ansu Fati became Spain's youngest debutant since 1936 when he took the pitch against Germany on Thursday.

Fati, 17, was one of the few bright spots in a Barca season marred by poor results on the pitch - which led to the club finishing the campaign without a single trophy - and instability away from Camp Nou.

The youngster made his debut at just 16 years and 298 days on August 25, 2019 against Betis, and went on to make 33 appearances in all competitions in his maiden season, scoring eight goals.

He was subsequently called up to Luis Enrique's squad for the latest international window, the first since the coronavirus pandemic caused much of European football to close back in March.

And with Spain tied 0-0 in their UEFA Nations League clash against Germany, Fati was thrown into the action after half time to help sharpen the Roja's attack.

The forward is aged 17 years and 308 days, making him the second-youngest footballer ever to play for Spain in the nation's history.

Fati additionally became the 800th full Spain international as he replaced veteran Jesus Navas at the break, as well as the first Roja member to have been born in Guinea-Bissau.

Not since Angel Zubieta had La Roja fielded such a young player at senior level.

Zubieta, who played much of his career in Argentina for San Lorenzo after fleeing his native Bilbao during the Spanish Civil War, debuted at 17 years and 284 days against Czechoslovakia in April 1936, the first of just two appearances he made for Spain prior to the outbreak of the conflict.

The podium is completed by another player with Barca ties; Bojan Krkic, who in 2008 made his international debut aged 18 years and 13 days.

Fati was unable to save his country from Nations League defeat, as Germany struck through Timo Werner in the second half to take a 1-0 victory.

As well as the Barcelona youngster two further Spain players received their first taste of senior international football: Manchester City's Ferran Torres and highly rated Real Sociedad midfielder Mikel Merino.

75

General Discussion / Stuck in T&T Thread.

« on: September 03, 2020, 05:08:06 PM »

Still stuck in T&T after exemption
Anna Ramdass (Express).

While there are thousands of Trinidad and Tobago citizens stranded in foreign lands who have been sharing their pain and want to return home, there are also foreigners stuck here who are desperate to get out.

Alain Dejeans is a Canadian national who has an official exemption letter to leave Trinidad from the National Security Ministry but this document is currently useless as there are no commercial flights with borders closed and no word on more repatriation flights.

Dejeans said he is not alone and there are about 40 other Canadians who want to return to their homeland.

He is appealing to the Canadian government to help them.

“I have already received the exemption to leave Trinidad, but without a flight to Canada, I do not see how,” he told the Express yesterday via WhatsApp.

He noted that there are private charter flights to the neighbouring islands which are offered at astronomical costs but many cannot afford this.

“In addition to being obliged to go through a laboratory for the Covid test, which often does not deliver the results before your departure, these tests are expensive and do not guarantee your acceptance on your arrival, that’s why that I put all my efforts in order to request the Canadian government to charter a (flight of) direct repatriation. There are a lot of people waiting to come back to Canada!” he said.

Confinement and restrictions

Dejeans said for three years he spent an average of six months in Trinidad via his sail boat.

“I arrive on my sail boat stored at the Coral Cove Marina in Chaguaramas at the end of November and leave it in mid-April. My return period was called into question following the closure of the Trinidadian borders, I can even say that my stay took on a completely different appearance, confinement, restrictions of all kinds,” he said.

Dejeans said he immediately started the procedures with the Canadian High Commission in Trinidad which included registration on the list of Canadians abroad, request for an exemption to leave the island and contact with all the foreign community living on their boats in neighbouring marinas.

He said the process has been difficult.

Dejeans said according to the High Commission, there are six repatriation flights and it was very difficult for the Canadian Government to negotiate return flights to Canada with the Trinidadian Government.

“I was surprised to learn such a thing because I thought that between these two countries there was an unfailing tranquillity...still it is that of these six flights I was informed of the last two, one the day before flight and the second two days before,” he said.

“I live on my sail boat and it is on the water, when I return to Canada I cannot leave it on the water for safety reasons and I have to take it out and store it on the Coral Cove lot where it is then in perfect safety, this operation takes four working days, so impossible for me to board the flights offered at the last minute ... for months I have been going around in circles,” he said.

Going public

He claimed the Commission has indicated it will no longer organise repatriation flights.

“Subsequently, I registered on a private forum, opened a survey and collected more than 40 names of Canadians still here and who want to return to Canada, then I addressed myself through a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada to explain my situation, mentioned that there were several dozen Canadian nationals living the same thing and finding a quick solution so that all could return to the country. Today my letter remains unanswered,” he said.

Dejeans said he also contacted the US Embassy in Trinidad to ask if he could benefit from one of their repatriation flights but “they kindly answered no”.

Dejeans said he hopes going public with his story will trigger some intervention because he and his fellow Canadians want to leave Trinidad.

The Express tried to contact the Canadian High Commission however their system is automated and directed callers seeking information on immigration and repatriation questions to a website: travel.gc.ca for Covid-19 travel updates and information.


‘Going around in circles’: Canadian national Alain Dejeans

76

Football / Equal Pay In Football Thread.

« on: September 03, 2020, 07:38:43 AM »

Brazil bring in equal pay policy for men and women’s national teams
By Samindra Kuunti (Insideworldfootball).

Brazil has introduced an equal pay policy with the women’s national team to receive the same daily stipend as their male counterparts, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has announced.

The players will be granted the same daily stipends and prize money will also be leveled out though commensurate with FIFA’s varying prize money at the Olympic Games and the World Cup.

CBF president Rogerio Caboclo announced the news as national team coach Pia Sundhage called up a home-based squad for training in September. The CBF boss said that the new practice had already been put in place in March.

“Since March of this year, CBF has made an equal value in terms of prizes and daily rates between men’s and women’s football,” said Caboclo.  “That is, the players earn the same thing as the players during the calls. What they receive by daily call, women also receive.”

He added: ”There is no more gender difference, as the CBF is treating men and women equally. What they will gain by conquering or by staging the Olympics next year will be the same as the men will have.”

Brazil’s women team have however not played a game since March when the global game went into shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. With equal pay, Brazil follows in the footsteps of Australia, Norway and New Zealand, who previously decided to pay their men and women internationals the same amount.

The CBF also appointed Aline Pellegrino as coordinator of women’s competitions and Duda Luizelli as coordinator of the women’s national teams.

77

Cricket Anyone / Windies Women Cricket Thread.

« on: September 03, 2020, 07:13:27 AM »

Windies women start preparation following COVID-19 testing.
T&T Guardian Reports.

DERBY, England — West Indies Women were awaiting the results of COVID-19 tests after arriving in England on Monday for their five-match Twenty20 International series against England bowling off later next month.

The touring party, comprising 18 players and a 12-member management unit, were all tested prior to departing the Caribbean and once the second tests are also negative, will begin their preparation in a bio-secure “bubble” identical to the setup that obtained for the recent men’s tour.

“[The hotel] is well thought out [and] well laid out. We had a briefing around the protocols and so on,” head coach Andre Coley said following the side’s arrival.

“We had our first COVID tests so we’re awaiting the results of those as well as issuing some equipment and gear, and we’ll start our recovery from tomorrow.

“The players are in good spirits, everybody is fine – management staff as well. We’re looking to get ready to get on the park.”

West Indies will take on England behind closed doors in the series which runs from September 21-30 at the Incora County Ground here, and which replaces scheduled tours by South Africa and India.

The series takes place amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and signals the return of women’s cricket to the international schedule since all cricket was suspended globally last March due to the outbreak.

The United Kingdom has been hard hit by COVID-19 with over 336,000 cases and 41,500 deaths, but the country has slowly begun to reopen following months of lockdown.

For West Indies, the series will be the first bilateral fixture in nearly a year, following their series against India in the Caribbean last November.

West Indies will be led by regular captain Stafanie Taylor but will miss veteran off-spinner and vice-captain Anisa Mohammed after the T&T native opted out due to COVID-19 concerns.

SQUAD – Stafanie Taylor, Afy Fletcher, Hayley Matthews, Aaliyah Alleyne, Cherry Ann Fraser, Natasha Mclean, Shemaine Campbelle, Shabika Gajnabi, Chedean Nation, Britney Cooper, Sheneta Grimmond, Karishma Ramharack, Shamilia Connell, Chinelle Henry, Kaysia Schultz, Deandra Dottin, Lee Ann Kirby, Shakera Selman.


West Indies women arrive at practice in Derby ahead of their five-match T20I series against England on September 21. Among the players, Chedean Nation, second from left, Britney Cooper, middle, fast-bowler Shamilia Connell and Shakera Selman, right. The Windies Women will begin the first match of the series on September 21.

78

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Adele Faces Backlash for Wearing Jamaican Flag Bikini

« on: August 31, 2020, 12:54:46 AM »

Adele Faces Backlash for Wearing Jamaican Flag Bikini, Bantu Knots in Tribute to Canceled Carnival
By Claudia Harmata (People).

Adele is facing backlash for the bikini and hairstyle she wore in an Instagram post marking the canceled Notting Hill Carnival festivities.

On Sunday, the British pop star, 32, shared a photo in tribute to Notting Hill Carnival, which celebrates Caribbean and Black culture in the U.K. In the photo, Adele wore a Jamaican flag bikini top and Bantu knots, a traditional African hairstyle.

"Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London 🇬🇧🇯🇲," she captioned the post for Carnival, which is being celebrated virtually this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Adele came under fire after posting the photo, as many on social media accused her of cultural appropriation.

One follower commented, "black women are discriminated against for wearing cultural hairstyles like bantu knots and locs but white people are not, that’s not fair and that’s why people are pissed off."

Others took offense with Adele's Jamaican bikini top.

"Dear white people, please just be yourselves and stop it for good with cultural appropriation. Adele the bantu knots were unnecessary. The Jamaican flag bikini top was unnecessary... Please just stop it," another follower wrote.

However, other followers came to Adele's defense.

"WE LOVE SEEING OUR FLAG EVERYWHERE!!!!" one person wrote in the comments. "This made me smile . It shows the impact my little island has on the whole world. How influential we truly are."

Another commenter added: "This is cultural appreciation not appropriation."

On Saturday, the carnival’s executive director, Matthew Phillip, spoke to The Guardian about the significance of the event in 2020, despite it being held online.

“For more than 50 years carnival has been a statement that Black Lives Matter,” he said. “That’s normal practice for us, it’s not something that we’re just jumping on now because of the current global climate and what’s going on. Carnival has been making these statements for 50 years.”

“In a year when people have been protesting against the treatment of black people I think this is a good way of showing that we have something to contribute, something that is positive,” he added, referencing the worldwide unrest over racial injustice and police brutality that ignited in May with the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


Adele / Instagram Adele / Instagram

79

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Black Panther star dies at 43.

« on: August 29, 2020, 06:37:00 AM »

Chadwick Boseman, Marvel's Black Panther, dies after cancer battle
By Marcus Errico·Editor-in-Chief, Yahoo Entertainment

Chadwick Boseman, who reigned onscreen as Marvel’s noble Black Panther, died at his Los Angeles home Friday of cancer at age 43, surrounded by his wife, singer Taylor Simone Ledward, and relatives.

Calling him “a true fighter,” Boseman’s family revealed the actor was diagnosed with colon cancer four years ago. He never made his diagnosis public, even after photos of the gaunt-looking actor appeared on social media.

“A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much,” read his family’s statement, which was posted on his Twitter and Instagram. “From Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and several more — all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy. It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.”

Boseman, who shared a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble for Black Panther, credited Denzel Washington for his start in acting; Washington paid for Boseman's college tuition.

While he was best known for playing T’Challa in the Marvel Cinematic Universe installments Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Boseman was equally at home in prestige films. He carved out a niche playing Black icons like Jackie Robinson (42), James Brown (Get on Up) and Thurgood Marshall (Marshall). His most recent role was in Spike Lee’s Netflix war movie Da 5 Bloods released in June. Boseman had also completed a film version of August Wilson’s stage drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opposite Viola Davis slated for later this year.

The devastating news shook friends and fans — from Marvel co-stars to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — who took to social media late Friday in an outpouring of grief, condolences and tributes:

80

General Discussion / Dukharan: T&T will run out of Foreign Currency.

« on: August 28, 2020, 12:53:07 PM »

Dukharan: T&T will run out of Foreign Currency.
By Kyron Regis (Guardian).

If there is no meaningful macroeconomic intervention in the T&T economy, the country runs the risk of depleting its foreign exchange (FX) reserves.

This what Economist Marla Dukharan revealed in her report titled: “Trinidad & Tobago Balance of Payments Risk: Why T&T could be heading to default and a balance of payments crisis by end-2022”.

In the report Dukharan contended: “Our declining FX reserves (and Heritage and Stabilization Fund) in the context of rising debt and persistent weakness in our exports, suggest that at some point we will run out of foreign currency, if nothing is done.”

Dukharan explained in her report that a country’s Balance of Payments account captures all the foreign currency transactions a country makes with the rest of the world, which includes but is not limited to imports, exports, remittances and foreign direct investment.

She argued: “The net effect of all these foreign exchange transactions is reflected in the change to the level of FX reserves held at the Central Bank - if we earn foreign currency, FX reserves increase, if we lose foreign currency, FX reserves decline.”

A balance of payments crisis, Dukharan highlighted, occurs when a country does not have enough foreign currency to meet its foreign currency denominated obligations, either debt or otherwise.

She posited that T&T is one of the most difficult places in the Caribbean to source USD.

Dukharan also pointed out that while the Heritage and Stabilization Fund (HSF) was never designed to be used to defend the exchange rate, the recent legislative amendment allows the Minister of Finance to access the fund to the tune of USD1.5 billion in a crisis.

The economist further projected that as there was “no legislated limit on frequency of USD 1.5 billion drawdown”, there is little doubt that the HSF will be used to augment the level of FX reserves.

According to Dukharan, the cumulative contributions of the Government to the HSF have only been USD2.5 billion since inception, with the remainder being earned by the fund manager.

The balance on the HSF is currently about USD 6 billion, which provides approximately seven months of import cover, but Dukharan expressed that no new Government contributions have been made in the last six fiscal years, meaning the fund has only grown through portfolio performance.

She indicated: “Combined, the HSF and the level of FX reserves currently provide about 14-15 months of import cover, and as argued below, unless the policy stance of the Government changes, T&T could run out of foreign exchange in about two years.”

In 2019, despite the fact that T&T exported more than it imported, Dukharan asserted that the net outflow of capital left T&T with a net negative position on the Balance of Payments account, and therefore a decline in the level of FX reserves.

Dukharan asserted that FX reserves have been steadily declining since December 2014, when it reached an all-time high of USD11.5 billion or 13 months of import cover. She noted that the current level of FX reserves now stands around USD7.2 billion, returning to the level of February / March 2008, following an uptick from the June 2020 USD500 million bond issue.

She expressed that this USD 7.2 billion level represents a decline of 37% from the all-time high in December 2014. According to Dukharan: “If we back out the impact of USD500 million in debt issued in June 2020, and look at what has been earned organically by our economy, we can see that we have been losing on average over USD70 million per month for over five years.”

The economist argued that this is not a sustainable situation, and it will end in default or a Balance of Payments crisis in T&T if it is maintained.

81

Football / Nigel Grosvenor Thread

« on: August 27, 2020, 02:48:17 PM »

Grosvenor grateful for love and prayers, iconic ex-St Anthony’s coach hospitalised for Covid-19
Wired868.com.

Iconic Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) coach and former Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) national youth team coach Nigel ‘Grovey’ Grosvenor is among 828 persons being treated for the novel coronavirus at present, within the Ministry of Health’s parallel health care system.

Grosvenor was admitted to the Couva General Hospital yesterday evening. As of this evening, the Ministry of Health has reported 1,007 positive cases in the twin island republic since the onset of the novel coronavirus.

“Thanks for all the love and prayers,” he asked Wired868 to relay to his supporters, via Whats App.

Ever the football man, Grosvenor wanted to learn more about the untimely passing of former Prisons FC attacker and St Augustine Secondary stand-out Nathan Julien who was murdered in Maloney last night. He extended his condolences to Julien’s friends and loved ones.

Grosvenor, a recovering cancer patient, announced last December that he was retiring from the role of head coach at Queen’s Royal College (QRC). He spent three seasons with the ‘Royalians’ but his name remains synonymous with St Anthony’s College where the former physical education teacher won five National Intercol and two National League titles to go with a room full of zonal trophies.

His former stand-outs include three World Cup 2006 players: Carlos Edwards, Kenwyne Jones and Evans Wise. Edwards and Jones also went on to play in the England Premier League.

The Ministry of Health reminds members of the public to adhere to the ‘new normal’ and:

Wear a mask over your nose and mouth when you go out in public;

Keep your distance from others (six feet);

Stay home if you are ill;

Clean then sanitise surfaces, such as tabletops, door knobs and cell phones;

Wash your hands often with soap and water or use an alcohol-based sanitiser;

Cough into a tissue or into the crook of your elbow;

Avoid touching your face.

Persons are urged to call Covid-19 hotline numbers: 877-WELL, 87-SWRHA or 877-3742 (Trinidad) and 800-HEAL (Tobago) if they feel unwell; or they can report a possible breach of Covid-19 regulations by calling 555, or sending messages—inclusive of photographs and videos—to the Police App or via Whats App to 482-GARY.

RELATED BONUS NEWS (Dec-2019)

‘Grovy’ number: Iconic SSFL coach on Dwarika, ‘Saints’ rivalry, coaching and a life-changing tackle.
By Roneil Walcott (Wired868).

After calling a day on his 35-plus year coaching career in the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) last week, former Queen’s Royal College coach Nigel ‘Grovy’ Grosvenor took some time away from playing with his granddaughter to talk to Wired868 about his health, his storied career with St Anthony’s College, his ability to win hearts and trophies without ever doing a coaching course and the tackle that altered his life.

Wired868: Why now? Why are you walking away from the game at this time?

Grosvenor: I was in West Shore Medical for two days last week. I was getting a lot of pain in my upper back and I thought it was a muscle pain, so I took muscle relaxers and all of these things. My daughter said that I should go to the hospital. Every time I sat down the pain was unbearable, so I jumped in the car and went to West Shore Medical.

I honestly thought it was a heart attack. My pressure was so high that the doctors said I could’ve gotten a stroke. I did an ECG, a chest X-ray and I also did blood tests. While lying down there in the hospital bed, they checked my heart, and everything was good. I asked myself what was happening here. And I said, ‘Aye, Nigel Grosvenor, you need a rest. You really need to take a rest.’

I’m not getting any younger. I said that was it. It’s a hard thing to do, saying you’re going to stop doing what you love doing. But I felt like I had little choice. Up to now, I’m still getting pain in my back. The pressure has gone down but not as low as it should be. I’ve spent about $3,000 on tablets since last week.

Wired868: How many years did you spend at St Anthony’s College?

Grosvenor: I spent 33 to 34 years at St Anthony’s.

Wired868: You had quite the career at St Anthony’s. How was the experience there?

Grosvenor: That’s a whole lot of time to spend at one institution, but I’m not regretting anything at all, at all with my coaching career. I just loved it. I instilled a discipline at St Anthony’s College.

I came to school like any other teacher for eight o’clock in the morning. When school was over, the work wasn’t finished for me as that would be the start of training. So I would reach home like half-past six or seven in the evening. That was going on and on for years. When I was coaching, I gave it my all.

I always tell people that God gave me that coaching talent. I never did a coaching course in my life. It was a gift from God. Let me tell you how I got into coaching. I went to Trinity College Moka and I got a scholarship to go West Virginia University and play football. I came back home and played for a team called Essex FC. I was pretty good.

And in 1984, I got one nasty tackle, which basically changed my life plans. And you see how I’m limping right now? That’s because of that tackle I got years ago in 1984, which mashed me up. That stopped me from playing.

When I got that tackle and laid down in the hospital and cried. I asked myself why God did that to me. I asked what I had done. You know you ask yourself those questions.

I was pretty young in the football still. When I was in the hospital bed, I found out that the national coach had liked me and wanted me to start training with the national team. I found out that just as I was waiting to go into my operation. I cried. Then I realised that this is what was supposed to happen to me. I never regretted it.

I realised it at St Anthony’s when we were winning trophies, why I broke my leg that day. If I didn’t break my leg at that time, I wouldn’t have concentrated on coaching. And I realised that God was sending me in another direction.

I used it to show people that I had a degree, and when I got injured in football, I was able to use my education to fall back on. I encourage the boys to get their education first. I say, ‘Look at me.’

Wired868: Did you assume the first coaching role at St Anthony’s straightaway?

Grosvenor: When I started at St Anthony’s, I started with the junior teams first. When I came to St Anthony’s nothing was going on. They were getting licks badly. I came into St Anthony’s in 1983 as a physical education teacher and eventually got into the coaching because they had nobody. I got injured in 1984 and then I started to get into the coaching aspect and got more interested in coaching.

Wired868: When did you win your first national title with St Anthony’s?

Grosvenor: We got our first national title in 1997. We were winning a lot of Under-14s and Under-16s. The team was coming up and things were working well and there was no turning back after that.

Wired868: How many titles did you win at St Anthony’s?

Grosvenor: I won five National Intercol and two National League titles. St Anthony’s have won six National Intercol titles in all, and three National League.

I had the support of my wife and my children. I also had the support of the fans and staff because I was a teacher as well.

Wired868: How many seasons did you spend at QRC? And how would you sum up the time there?

Grosvenor: I spent three seasons at QRC. With QRC, it was a new experience. I thought I was successful with what I wanted to do at QRC. When I came, there was no succession of players going up. They didn’t have a youth programme that would see the boys reach up to the Premier Division and continue on. And I came in and tried to implement that. And look what happened this year?

These boys should be here for the next two to three years. I was very pleased with my experience at QRC.

Wired868: When you left for QRC three years ago, were you still teaching?

Grosvenor: Yes. I was still teaching at St Anthony’s. It was my last year as I had to retire after reaching age 60. St Anthony’s got somebody, but I wasn’t ready to give up on my coaching career. I called QRC because I heard they were looking for a coach. They were interviewing and they took me in one time.

I had a nice three years with them. This team this year was a nice, young team. I was really trying to avoid relegation this year because I knew that I had them for the next two years. I really went in there to develop them. It was pretty good you know. We came eighth and there were some games we should’ve won. This would’ve put us in fourth or fifth place.

Wired868: What is your most cherished moment as a coach?

Grosvenor: I have cherished moments all the time. But obviously it would be my first national title, which I won in 1997 when we won the National Intercol final. We were nowhere near the favourites. We placed very low in the league standings and it was amazing to see the kinda crowd that turned up at the Queen’s Park Oval to see that final against St Benedict’s College.

There were 15 to 20,000 people in that Oval. It was packed. We came like the sweethearts in the SSFL’s Intercol competition at that time. Here we were playing against the mighty St Benedict’s, and everybody just came out. It was pandemonium after the game. I had very good years after that.

In 2011, we didn’t lose a single game. We won everything. We played 19 games and won all 19. And that was a good team too. But in 1997, when we won our first Intercol title, it was heaven.

Wired868: Who were some of the players on that team in 1997?

Grosvenor: Carlos Edwards was a member of that team. We also had Sean Cooper. That’s when Carlos made his name—and Shawn also. We also had Marcus Rodriguez.

It was nice knowing that most of these guys went on to get scholarships and so on. A lot of them have their degrees now. Well, we know that Carlos went pro and made a good career for himself in the English Premier League. But that team was very nice.

Wired868: On the flip side, what was the least favourite moment in your coaching career?

Grosvenor: Looking back, I’d say the moment that left a bitter taste in my mouth was the death of one of my players, Martin Anatol. He was a former captain also. He was on a scholarship in England and he died from drowning.

That one really hit me. The death of former national team goalkeeper Michael McComie also hit me hard. But Anatol died shortly after featuring in my team and skippering that team. It really threw me off. I’m talking to you right now and I’m seeing Martin’s face in front of me… He was disciplined; a very good player.

Wired868: From all the players you have coached over the years, which player would you say stood out the most?

Grosvenor: Brother, and I’m being very honest with you, people have always asked me this question and I’ve never answered. Because when I call one name somebody would say, ‘so what about so and so?’

In my time at St Anthony’s College, we have had so many outstanding players. There’s no way on this earth I’d be able to single out one. I wouldn’t even give out examples. But we’ve had so many outstanding players that to call out one would be madness. And that’s the honest truth.

Wired868: What is your coaching philosophy?

Grosvenor: When I finish coach, I want my players to be able to look forward to the next day of coaching; that’s important. They must enjoy it. As soon as a session is finished and these players come off the field, we are talking and liming. I will stay with them and we will be talking about life and everything else.

When they go on the field, they understand that this is work. But off the field, they must be able to feel comfortable and build a genuine relationship.

The thing is, coaches would read a book and go through many different courses and not know how to deal with the kids. It’s more than just putting cones on the field. It’s about personality. You must have the personality to coach. You can get an ‘A’ in your coaching course, but if the players aren’t comfortable with you, then that would’ve been a waste of time.

I think my personality helped me a lot in my coaching career. I’m not boasting eh. People told me that. When I go out there, I coach from the heart. I use my experience as a player and a teacher, and I put those two together. You must remain humble and ask a lot of questions. When I played, I looked to see what other coaches did and that’s how it is. I never did a coaching course.

Wired868: Who was the toughest coach you went up against?

Grosvenor: The toughest coaches would’ve had some really good players eh [chuckles]. But the coaches I really looked up to and learned from would’ve been Hayden Martin, who was at St Mary’s College, Selris Figaro from Mucurapo, Ken Franco from Malick and Michael Grayson from St Augustine. These were some of the top coaches. These days we were playing in the zone so notice that there are quite a few north coaches there.

Wired868: What was something specific that you learned from these coaches that you perhaps then adapted to your own style?

Grosvenor: From Hayden, it was a lot of discipline. And that was something St Mary’s always had. How he carried himself and how the players carried themselves was admirable. When we went there, the players all had on the same outfits and they all looked in unison. I learned a lot of that from him. From Figaro, it was a lot of one-touch and two-touch football; a lot of skills football.

I got it into that with St Anthony’s. I let them know that we had to knock the ball around and be patient. The discipline kept us on top with all of that because the boys were enjoying it. When we combined that discipline with the style of play then it really put everything together for us.

The major thing was the love I had for them and the love they gave to each other. It starts from on top. […] Off-the-ball work made us victorious. It’s not just about going on the field and putting down cones and yelling out tactics. That alone isn’t going to make you victorious. Getting that team together as one, that’s what St Anthony’s did.

Wired868: Who was the toughest opposing player for you to contain?

Grosvenor: The best player I faced in my coaching career in the SSFL was Arnold Dwarika. He was totally unbelievable. He was the most dangerous player I coached against.

Wired868: What made Dwarika so dangerous?

Grosvenor: The skill, the speed, the knowledge, the shot. He singlehandedly brought Malick to a level of prominence in his era. I’m not saying that there weren’t other good players, but he was unmarkable [sic].

I remember in a North Intercol final, I put a player on Dwarika called Maurice Loregnard, who was my skipper at the time. He held down Dwarika for long periods of that game until he came off the field with cramp in the 89th minute. To mark Dwarika was a chore and that little boy was so disciplined and stubborn that he put out everything, to the point where he cramped up and couldn’t go anymore. As he came off and another man came on, Dwarika scored the winning goal.

Wired868: Was there any player who superseded your expectations with his progress during his career?

Grosvenor: There was a little boy by the name of Damien Westfield. There were two Westfield brothers who attended Malick and they were two of the best SSFL players at the time. After one particular season with St Anthony’s, we played in a Caribbean tournament and we played teams from Jamaica and other islands and we won.

And we could have chosen three outside players for the tournament. Two of those players were the Westfield brothers from Malick. At the end of the season, Damien approached me and said he wanted to come to St Anthony’s. At that time Malick were only on football. He was telling me about guys who didn’t go to class and this and that. And then I transferred him to St Anthony’s. But he was struggling with his studies, so I got lessons for him.

There was a time I went home by him for his birthday, and I took the team there. We bought some buckets of chicken and we went by him. It was just he and his brother living there by themselves. Both of them were students at the time. The mother went away to New York to work and she would send down money and other necessities for them. Two of them lived there by themselves and the house was dilapidated.

That kid got a scholarship to attend Young Harris College for two years. From there, he went to Creighton University to play football. Now, he has a doctorate. He is a lecturer in a university. This is the same little boy. He worked hard and persevered. Now I have to call him Dr Damien Westfield.

That’s one of the players whose growth was really touching. And they don’t ever forget you. They call and ask, ‘Grovy, how yuh going?’ That’s the whole love in it. With all the years we won and getting the trophies and the attention; that was nice. But when I hear what these boys have done with themselves, that’s my trophy. When you look at Brent Rahim and Evans Wise and these guys, who have gotten their degrees and are doing well for themselves; that’s my trophy.

People feel as though we don’t do anything constructive for the boys at St Anthony’s. They just win and they don’t care about football. But it wasn’t like that at all. We’ve had so many boys who got football scholarships and have done so well, but I wouldn’t put it in the press because it’s nothing to boast about. And they keep in contact with me. And that’s what I love.

Wired868: How would you compare the players back then to the players now, in terms of the mentality and the drive to succeed?

Grosvenor: It’s harder now. In those years it wasn’t about going down to Movietowne or using PlayStation or whatever those new games are. It didn’t have those things. They didn’t even have cellular phones. Now, you have so much distractions. It’s a boat ride here and a boat ride there. As a coach, you are competing against so many things. In those days you had more time to concentrate on your schoolwork and football. Now it’s Instagram and Facebook.

Wired868: If you were to give the SSFL’s Premier Division format a grade, what grade would you give it at this time?

Grosvenor: I was the one who originally brought up this idea of having the Premier Division. I stood up and said we need to move on, and we need to make changes. We were very monotonous. I said we need to have a national league where all the top players are in that league and we’d call it the Premier Division. I stood up there and I told them that.

I think it has been a success. You have the best teams in the country playing against each other, and the standard is high. And it is getting better and better.

I’m the one who orchestrated, but obviously it’s better than playing in the zones. In the zones, you’d have one or two good teams, but you are going to have some poor teams too. You’re going to have teams collecting nine and 10, and it’s not working out.

But now in this Premier Division, you have to work hard, and the players are going to play better because the competition is tougher. It’s going to have the same distractions and so on, but the standard is higher. You are going to have problems in the Premier Division, but we’re going to work through them.

Look at the number of sponsors that the SSFL has. The sponsors are seeing a good project and they have jumped on it. If we were not successful, we would not have had all these sponsors. I don’t think the Super League and the Pro League have all the sponsors like the SSFL has. Therefore, it has been successful.

People will say all kinda things, but we have SportsMax, Shell, Digicel, First Citizens, Coca-Cola and Fruta. What else can you ask for? They are investing because they are seeing something going on.

Wired868: Do you regret not winning any National titles during the Premier Division era?

Grosvenor: It would have been nice, yeah. But I’d tell you something. When I left St Anthony’s in 2016, I’m pretty sure that we would have won that year. I built up that team and I was ready to win it that year. And I told the principal, Mr Maurice Inniss, that. I had retired from teaching, but I could’ve continued coaching. That team came up and it was a good team. The principal decided that he wanted to make changes and he had plans, so I had to leave.

That’s how I went to QRC and they were looking to rebuild. I didn’t leave St Anthony’s. I was told that they have plans and I wasn’t part of the plans. I would never do something like that.

Before making our name in football, nobody never really heard about St Anthony’s College. Because of the football they got added recognition. And when they got that recognition, the school grew, and I was a part of that.

Because of football we got sixth form. When our players reached to fifth form they were leaving for other schools. I told the principal that we needed a sixth form in order to keep the players because they were getting good grades as well, and that happened. I would have loved to end off by winning the Premier Division trophy.

In 2015, we lost to Naparima in the National Intercol final, and I would have had the same team for the next year. It was a teething process, and I felt as though that team had reached the point where they were ready to win something. There were good players on that team, and I was looking forward to coaching them because I know we would have won.

Wired868: Telling us about your time coaching at the national youth level.

Grosvenor: I coached the National Under-17 team in 2004, and it was very nice.

We went to Cuba, but I was very inexperienced in this thing. We had nowhere to stay as the rooms weren’t ready yet and the game was the next day. When we left to go for the game, we left the same time as the Cuban team and we reached about half an hour before the game.

The driver took us all through traffic and stalled us. In those days we were naive to it, but now coaches know what to expect. When we got to the venue, the Cubans were there long time. They ended beating us 2-1 or something like that.

That is what happens when you play matches away from home. The opponent does everything to try and sway the game in their favour. But yeah it was a nice experience.

On the downside, we weren’t given anything when it came to preparation. I had to organise training jerseys for them through sponsors from St Anthony’s. I organised food for them. One of my assistant coaches was in the Army, and he organised for us to train at a ground in Teteron barracks.

That’s what was happening with that national team. But I won’t complain because I knew the circumstances and I took the job. I could have said no, I don’t want the job. It was a nice experience with a nice bunch of guys.

If you ask me to do it again, then the answer would be no.

Wired868: Why would you have said no?

Grosvenor: You get nothing. You don’t get to travel with the team to play matches abroad. You have to fight for this and fight for that. In those days I’m talking about. […] I used to get a $1,000 a month for coaching the national team.

Wired868: Any closing words?

Grosvenor: I’m 62. You might say that’s young eh. But it’s what you do and what you put out. In all my years of coaching, I put out 100%. Also, I was a dean and a teacher so that wasn’t easy at all. I’m no longer a teacher and I’m not coaching anymore, so now friend, I’m going to spend time playing with my granddaughter and take in SSFL games; she’s one and a half. She says, ‘Papa Papa.’ And I just love that.

I will be on the bench, but a different bench, so I’m looking forward to that. I put out all when I coach—all my energy. The night before a game, you can’t sleep and it’s the same the night after the game, even if you win or lose. I have been doing that for 30-plus years, so next season, please God, I’ll have my fold-up chair in the trunk and whatever the game of the day is, I’ll be there. I’ll go with my chair and just sit back and watch football.

Somebody told me I should write a book, but I would not even know where to start.

82

General Discussion / Caribbean Passport Thread.

« on: August 27, 2020, 08:16:10 AM »

Wealthy Nigerians are buying up passports for cash from Caribbean nations to beat visa rules
By Africa Reporter (qz.com).

A year ago, the office of Citizenship by Investment Program (CIP) in the small Caribbean island nation  of St. Lucia had received no applications from any Africans in its nearly five years of operations.

But in the past few months, it has issued up to 60 passports to Nigerians and is reporting steady increases in applications from the country—still its sole African market.

That sharp rise reflects spiking demand among Nigeria’s wealthy private citizens who are increasingly tapping into “investment migration” programs offered by foreign countries. The programs allow foreign nationals to obtain fast-tracked citizenship and passports or permanent residency permits in exchange for specified amounts of cash investments. The payment for the passports can come in form of direct “contributions” to the development funds set up by the national governments or through investment in real estate projects which offer the promise of not just passports but also possible profits.

With around 40,000 passports believed to have been issued through investment migration programs globally, citizenship by investment is now estimated to be a $3 billion industry. It is often favored by high-net worth individuals from countries with “weak” passports often from countries in sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern countries.

“What you have is a community of wealthy individuals who cannot travel without visas.”

Henley & Partners, the world’s largest investment migration consultancy, has also set up shop in Africa’s largest economy after seeing a sharp rise in demand from the country over the past three years. The office in Lagos is only Henley & Partners’ third in Africa, in addition to offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg opened six years ago.

“The reason we opened in Nigeria is because we saw significant potential in the market with growth in private wealth without global mobility for high net worth individuals,” says Paddy Blewer, public relations director at Henley & Partners. “What you have is a community of wealthy individuals who cannot travel without visas.”

That reality is best captured by the weakness of Nigeria’s international passport. In fact, Nigerian passport holders can visit two fewer countries now than they could in 2010 without first obtaining a visa. The country also suffered the worst decline in passport power over the past decade, according to rankings on the annual Henley Passport Index.

But even paperwork-intensive visa application processes have also gotten more complicated for Nigerians. Under the Trump administration, for example, US visa application fees for Nigerian applicants have been increased, an interview waiver process  for visa renewals for frequent travelers has been indefinitely suspended while a ban has also been placed on issuing immigrant visas to Nigerians. The net effect of these restrictions resulted in Nigeria recording the largest global drop-off in visitors to the US last year.

In search of improved international mobility, investment migration programs by Caribbean nations offer wealthy Nigerians and other citizens a legal and established workaround that ticks two crucial boxes: price point and access.

For instance, St. Lucia’s lowest-priced program, a “contribution to the national economic fund,” costs $100,000 for individuals and $140,000 for a family of four, as well as $15,000 for each additional family member. “That pricing model has really resonated well with the Nigerian community,” says Nestor Alfred, chief executive of St. Lucia’s CIP office. “A lot of our Nigerian applications consist of families.”

Other Caribbean islands including Dominica as well as St. Kitts and Nevis also offer investment migration programs with minimum costs of $100,000 and $150,000 respectively, a lot less than similar European programs typically cost. The US program issues permanent residence permits in exchange for investment ranging from $500,000 to $1 million.

But in addition to relative affordability, passports of Caribbean island nations also rank much higher than Nigeria’s on a global scale. For instance, St. Lucia passport holders have visa-free and visa-on-arrival access to 145 countries—more than triple Nigeria’s figure. And for extra context, St. Lucia passport holders’ visa free access allows them into the entire European 26-country “Schengen” area, the UK, and Switzerland.

How Nigeria's passport power compares to Caribbean Island nations 2020

Country - Passport Power - Global Passport Power Ranking

St Kitts/Nevis - 154 Countries - 27
St. Lucia - 145 Countries - 33
Dominica - 139 Countries - 37
Nigeria - 46 Countries - 95

Taking it up

With Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy battered by the pandemic and set for its worst recession in three decades, there are few indications interest in investment migration from Nigeria will slow down.

Nigeria and South Africa dominate demand from Africa and currently account for 85% of Henley & Partners’ business on the continent, with Nigeria growing rapidly with an interest in Caribbean-based citizenship programs.

That momentum will likely remain fueled by Nigeria’s super-wealthy with the country’s population of people with a net worth of more than $30 million—currently at 724 people—forecast to grow by 13% in the next five years.

Population of individuals with net-worth of over $30 Million (2020)

South Africa - 1,033
Egypt - 764
Nigeria - 724
Algeria - 404
Morocco - 215

But as it turns out, interest in emigration is not restricted to Nigeria’s super-wealthy alone. Over the past three years, middle-class Nigerians have also increasingly emigrated through skill-based programs offering legal pathways to residency and citizenship in Canada and Australia. In the last five years alone, the number of Nigerian immigrants issued permanent resident permits in Canada has tripled.

One distinction however is that high net-worth individuals who have earned most of their wealth locally are typically simply looking to boost their mobility options rather than permanently relocate. “We’re dealing with people whose businesses and largely their wealth is derived from Nigerian investment—they’re not going to leave permanently,” says Blewer. “This is about being able to go where they want at the drop of a hat. It’s not about leaving Lagos.”

Double-checking

For tourism-based economies in the Caribbeans, investment migration programs offer a significant alternative to receiving foreign direct investment. And as recent history shows, with the Covid-19 pandemic paralyzing global travel and tourism, the revenue diversification opportunities these programs offer can prove vital. Indeed, after Hurricane Maria devastated Dominica in 2017, the government sought to shore up tourism deficits by reducing some of its processing fees to make its investment migration programs more attractive and in turn, provide much-needed funds to rebuild and boost the local economy.

But Dominica has also been caught in the crosshairs of a corruption scandal involving its passports program. Last year, an Al Jazeera investigation showed high-powered officials involved in brokering transactions to sell diplomatic passports to foreign business people suspected of corrupt dealings. Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s embattled former minister of petroleum who is wanted for alleged corrupt dealings while in office, was identified in the investigation as one of the recipients of a diplomatic passport under questionable circumstances.

The scrutiny from such scandals amplify why investment migration programs claim to place a premium on due diligence. Even though it’s not legally required to, Henley & Partners says it carries out client verification processes, covering sources of wealth, and criminal history.

“We’re not interested in persons involved in military, government officials, or politically exposed persons. Our interest is more in executives and young professionals,” Alfred tells Quartz Africa. As such, the increased applications from Nigeria being primarily from private business executives across sectors, including banking, is ideal for St. Lucia because “it’s easier for us to determine the source of funds,” Alfred says.

83

Football / Kylian Mbappe Thread

« on: August 23, 2020, 12:52:41 AM »

Ronaldo explains why Real Madrid should sign Mbappe over Neymar
Yahoo News.

Real Madrid great Ronaldo believes the La Liga champions should sign Kylian Mbappe ahead of Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Neymar.

Mbappe has been tipped to make the move to Madrid at some stage in his career, with Los Blancos reportedly eyeing a 2021 transfer.

Former Barcelona forward Neymar – who joined PSG in a world-record deal in 2017 – has also been linked to Madrid previously.

But Brazilian legend Ronaldo, a La Liga winner with Madrid in 2002-03, prefers France's Mbappe over countryman Neymar due to age.

"Right now, it is not that one is better than another, but if Real Madrid had to make a big investment, they should do so thinking about the future," Ronaldo said during a webinar hosted by Santander.

"Neymar is 28 years old and Mbappe is 22. As an investment, it would be more logical to bring the younger [of the two]."

Mbappe and Neymar are preparing for Sunday's Champions League final against Bayern Munich in Lisbon.

French powerhouse PSG will feature in their first Champions League decider, having dominated domestically.

Neymar – who won the 2015 Champions League with Barca – and PSG have already claimed Ligue 1, Coupe de France, Coupe de la Ligue and Trophee des Champions in 2019-20.

"He needs to win the Champions League to complete his season," Ronaldo said of Neymar.

"He has played very well in the last few games, especially in this final phase in Portugal.

"He has created many scoring chances, but he has lacked calmness to finish off moves. With luck and calmness, he can find himself scoring in the final."

Ronaldo, meanwhile, also believes Lionel Messi won't be leaving Barcelona anytime soon despite reports suggesting he's considering a Camp Nou exit.

"It is very unlikely that Messi will leave Barcelona, especially with the financial crisis in Europe," he said.

"Messi is the reference of the team and if I was Barcelona I would not let him leave in any case.

"Messi has a very intense relationship with Barcelona, I do not think he will stop being in love with the team. He's upset, of course, with how they were defeated in the Champions League.

"Messi needs his team-mates to help him, as they do, and Barcelona will have to think of something different for the next seasons. Letting your main player leave is not the solution."

84

Trinbago, NBA & World Basketball / Jabari Narcis signs with Palencia in Spain

« on: August 22, 2020, 08:05:29 AM »

“Jabari Narcis signs with Palencia in Spain"
T&T Guardian Reports.

Following his outstanding collegiate career at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA), Jabari Narcis will head out to Europe to jump-off his professional basketball career. The 6-9 standing forward who weights (240-pounds, will commence his professional career with Chocolates Trapa Palencia in Spain LEB Gold League for the 2020-21 season.

The native of Enterprise in Chaguanas had several pro options which he shortlisted to either Palencia or Mexico City Capitanes, a new team added to the NBA G-League. However, he chooses the former due to several favourable factors provided by the Spanish team. Also, there is a concern about how the G-League would operate next season with the current Covid-19 pandemic.

During his senior year at UTA, Narcis recorded three career-high five 3-pointers in different games including one against the nation's top-ranked and best shooting team Gonzaga in which he went 5-5 on 19/11/2019 outscoring his opponent's top shooters. He had a career-high 23pts against Arkansas on 24/11/19; career-high 18rebs vs Panola on 1/11/18; and career-high 4blks at South Alabama on 28/2/19. Narcis made three or more 3-pointers nine times.

Despite playing just two seasons with UTA, he recorded 79 career blocks and was ranked 7th all-time in programme's history. He completed his UTA career with 349 points and 309 rebounds and registered six double-doubles in the Sun Belt Conference teams and tied for the 6th-most in the Conference.

He led UTA in rebounding and three-point percentage (37.6) and his 47 3-pointers made (in 125 attempts) were the 2nd-most on the team.

Before UTA, Narcis played at Jacksonville Community College, Texas, for two seasons. As a sophomore, he averaged 7.6pts, 8.3rebs and 1.3blks and shot 55.8% from the field. He has a season-high 20 points with 16 rebounds and registered nine double-figure rebound performances.

He helped lead the team to a 21-9 overall record and a Region XIV South Division title.

His mother Suzzette Joseph said, "Other persons in the community hailed Jabari as a naturally gifted street basketballer." Narcis reminisced about playing basketball at age five, but it was not until age 14 under the guidance of community coach Eric Knights, who Narcis had high praises for, that he started practising and training. To enhance Naris development, Knights eventually introduced him to his former club coach, the legendary Lenny Guy (ex-national coach/player), who together with Albert Lee Young operated an 18 and Under player development programme with the Millennium Basketball Academy (MBA) at Maloney Gardens, Maloney.

Joseph recalled that despite training during the week with coach Knights then with MBA on Saturdays, Jabari persistently went to train again on Sundays with senior men's first division team Petro Jazz based in San Fernando. This is a testimony to Narics' dedication and hard work to accomplish his basketball dream.

A former student of Chaguanas North Secondary School and ASJA Boys' College, he represented T&T Under-19 Team at the Jamaica Hoopfest Club Tournament in 2016 and poured in 28 points and grabbed seven 7 rebounds against Team NYC. He was the Finals MVP at the tournament.


Jabari Narcis signs for Chocolates Trapa Palencia in Spain. -

85

General Discussion / Wait, we does import chicken too?

« on: August 20, 2020, 12:46:18 PM »

Drop in imported chicken leaves short supply
YVONNE WEBB (NEWSDAY).

A reduction in the importation of chicken has left a shortfall in the supply of poultry on the T&T market.

Head of the Poultry Association Robin Phillips said the covid19 pandemic is to be blamed.

Phillips said factors such as the drop in global flights and adjustments to labour forces have seen a drastic cut in the importation of chicken, leaving local poultry farmers trying their best to meet the shortfall.

He said local producers' production cycle to bring a chicken to maturity is basically 12 weeks, and they are in the seventh or eight week of that cycle.

“Local supplies should be back to normal in about three to four weeks maximum," he predicted. At present, he said, "We are about 90 per cent of where we would like to be because of the adjustments in production level we made in the covid19 total lockdown.

“So supplies are going to be tight for maybe another few weeks, depending on the demand.”

He said approximately a million heads of chicken are consumed in T&T on a weekly basis.

“Local production is about 800,000 chickens per week...We eat a lot of chicken.”

He said with the 75 per cent cut, only about 50,000 heads have been coming in to Trinidad.

“So there is a shortfall of about 150,000 chickens on that side alone, on average. Of course our local farmers cannot be expected at the drop of a hat to produce 150,000 more chickens per week.” Phillips said.

In addition, “Supplies are very tight because of adjustments in production levels that producers made when you had a total lockdown earlier this year, when restaurants and the whole food-service industry were closed."

Producers made adjustments because they did not know when they would be able to reopen.

“The local producers are trying to make up the shortfall as best as possible but it’s a serious challenge. So therefore, the supplies are very tight.

"But most people are getting some supplies, if not 100 per cent. We are trying to make sure our customers get as close as possible to their regular supply.”

While he has not had complaints from consumers or clients, Phillips admitted some non-traditional customers who get their supplies from abroad may be experiencing a shortage because local suppliers would give priority to their regular customers.

“We are trying to help them as far as possible, but not at the expense of our loyal customers.

Phillips who also represents Arawak, said they have been supplying fresh chicken to supermarkets daily.

“All our regular customers are getting an adequate supply.”

Supermarket Association president Rajiv Diptee said the situation has not posed a problem for his members so far, but understands because there are not enough mature chickens for sale, some people are experiencing a shortfall, including some pluck-shop owners.

Attempts to reach Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat on Thursday through calls and text messages proved futile.

86

Football / Thread for T&T vs Guyana Game (25-Mar-2021)

« on: August 19, 2020, 02:42:43 PM »

As usual, any updates/scores, shout-outs, reports, predictions, views, etc, on the T&T vs Guyana preliminary 2022 World Cup qualifying game in Dominican Republic on the 25th of March 2021 will be posted here, this way, we can maintain the message board and not make it look too scrappy with un-necessary or related headlines and postings on game day.

For the internet users, you can follow the game at:

To be updated.

Possible Online Streams.

To be updated.

Possible TV Station.

To be updated.

Trinidad & Tobago Squad

Goalkeepers:

Marvin Phillip (Unattached), Adrian Foncette (Police FC), Denzil Smith (W Connection), Nicklas Frenderup (Stjørdals-Blink);

Defenders:

Noah Powder (Real Salt Lake), Leland Archer (Charleston Battery), Justin Garcia (Defence Force FC), Sheldon Bateau (KV Mechelen), Aubrey David (Deportivo Saprissa), Radanfah Abu Bakr (Unattached), Robert Roberts (Bengaluru United), Joevin Jones (Inter Miami CF);

Midfielders:

Michel Poon-Angeron (Club Atlético Banfield), Andre Boucaud (Maidstone United), Neveal Hackshaw (Indy Eleven FC), Duane Muckette (Unattached), Daniel Phillips (Watford FC), Judah Garcia (Neroca FC), Khaleem Hyland (Al Batin FC), Levi Garcia (AEK Athens), Sean Bonval (Central FC);

Forwards:

Brent Sam (Defence Force FC), Ryan Telfer (York United FC), Willis Plaza (Mohammedan SC), Jabari Mitchell (Police FC), Marcus Joseph (Unattached).

Coach - Terry Fenwick (ENG).

Guyana Squad

Goalkeepers

Akel Clarke (Mount Pleasant Academy), Kai McKenzie-Lyle (Cambridge United), Shawn Adonis (Guyana Police Force FC).

Defenders

Matthew Briggs (Vejle Boldklub), Miguel Scarlett (Unattached), Kadell Daniel (Margate FC), Jeremy Garrett (Guyana Defence Force FC), Nicolai Andrews (Santos FC), Bayli Spencer-Adams (Watford FC), Terence Vancooten (Stevenage FC).

Midfielders

Nathan Moriah-Welsh (Bournemouth FC), Sam Cox (capt) (Hampton & Richmond FC), Daniel Wilson (Guyana Police Force FC), Jobe Caesar (Guyana Defence Force FC), Ryan Hackett (Guyana Defence Force FC), Pernel Schultz (Guyana Police Force FC).

Forwards

Callum Harriott (Colchester United), Keanu Marsh-Brown (Newport County AFC), Omari Glasgow (Fruta Conquerors FC), Kelsey Benjamin (Guyana Defence Force FC), Nicolas McArthur (Fruta Conquerors FC), Trayon Bobb (Uitvlugt Warriors FC), Emery Welshman (Hapoel Ra'anana AFC).

Coach - Márcio Máximo Barcellos (BRA).


Updates to follow as we get more info, so keep checking back.

87

Football / Thread for T&T vs Puerto Rico Game (28-Mar-2021)

« on: August 19, 2020, 02:42:16 PM »

As usual, any updates/scores, shout-outs, reports, predictions, views, etc, on the T&T vs Puerto Rico preliminary 2022 World Cup qualifying game in Puerto Rico on the 28th of March 2021 will be posted here, this way, we can maintain the message board and not make it look too scrappy with un-necessary or related headlines and postings on game day.

For the internet users, you can follow the game at:

To be updated.

Possible Online Streams.

To be updated.

Possible TV Station.

To be updated.

Trinidad & Tobago Squad

Goalkeepers:

To be updated.

Defenders:

To be updated.

Midfielders:

To be updated.

Forwards:

To be updated.

Coach - Terry Fenwick (ENG).

Puerto Rico Squad

Goalkeepers

To be updated.

Defenders

To be updated.

Midfielders

To be updated.

Forwards

To be updated.

Coach - Dave Sarachan (USA).


Updates to follow as we get more info, so keep checking back.

88

Football / Thread for T&T vs Bahamas Game (5-Jun-2021)

« on: August 19, 2020, 02:42:11 PM »

As usual, any updates/scores, shout-outs, reports, predictions, views, etc, on the T&T vs Bahamas preliminary 2022 World Cup qualifying game in Bahamas on the 5th of June 2021 will be posted here, this way, we can maintain the message board and not make it look too scrappy with un-necessary or related headlines and postings on game day.

For the internet users, you can follow the game at:

To be updated.

Possible Online Streams.

To be updated.

Possible TV Station.

To be updated.

Trinidad & Tobago Squad

Goalkeepers:

To be updated.

Defenders:

To be updated.

Midfielders:

To be updated.

Forwards:

To be updated.

Coach - Terry Fenwick (ENG).

Bahamas Squad

Goalkeepers

To be updated.

Defenders

To be updated.

Midfielders

To be updated.

Forwards

To be updated.

Coach - To be updated.


Updates to follow as we get more info, so keep checking back.

89

Football / Thread for T&T vs St Kitts & Nevis Games (8-Jun-2021)

« on: August 19, 2020, 02:42:05 PM »

As usual, any updates/scores, shout-outs, reports, predictions, views, etc, on the T&T vs St Kitts & Nevis preliminary 2022 World Cup qualifying game in T&T on the 8th of June 2021 will be posted here, this way, we can maintain the message board and not make it look too scrappy with un-necessary or related headlines and postings on game day.

For the internet users, you can follow the game at:

To be updated.

Possible Online Streams.

To be updated.

Possible TV Station.

To be updated.

Trinidad & Tobago Squad

Goalkeepers:

To be updated.

Defenders:

To be updated.

Midfielders:

To be updated.

Forwards:

To be updated.

Coach - Terry Fenwick (ENG).

St Kitts & Nevis Squad

Goalkeepers

To be updated.

Defenders

To be updated.

Midfielders

To be updated.

Forwards

To be updated.

Coach - To be updated.


Updates to follow as we get more info, so keep checking back.

90

Trinbago, NBA & World Basketball / Murdered local star Shawn "Shawny" Lawrence was 'a legit NBA prospect'

« on: August 19, 2020, 02:00:49 PM »

Shawny was 'a legit NBA prospect'
NARISSA FRASER (NEWSDAY).

THE local basketball fraternity is now mourning national player Shawn "Shawny" Lawrence, 30, who died on Wednesday.

According to police, Lawrence and four other men were shot in Maloney, on Tuesday night. Two of the men are still being treated for gunshot wounds, one man died at the scene, and Lawrence died at hospital.

During his career, he played as a centre and represented the Caledonia Clippers, Detour Shak Attack and the Maloney Pacers.

National Basketball Federation of TT (NBFTT) vice-president, marketing and communications Stefan Dillon told Newsday Lawrence's death "comes as a major loss to the basketball community as his on-court ability provided spectators with a high degree of entertainment.

"To me, Shawny was a very quiet and reserved individual. However, his explicit display of his natural ability and basketball skills would suggest otherwise. Shawny was considered one of the top players in the country that many believed had the potential to play professionally. His tall stature, high skill-set and athletic dexterity made him comparable to an NBA prospect."

Dillon was also his team-mate in 2008 when they were both enrolled in the University of TT's (UTT) basketball athletic-scholarship programme. He is now UTT's head coach.

Founder and athletic director of Stories of Success Basketball Academy, and assistant secretary of the East Zone Basketball Committee Kern George told Newsday Lawrence was "a legit NBA prospect and a force to be reckoned with on the hardwood.

"One of the best young centres to touch the shores of the 868. He could play all sports. His first sport was football where he was really talented. The Maloney Pacers organisation gave him a chance to learn and play the game of basketball."

George also played alongside him at UTT in 2008, and in 2013 and 2014 for Maloney."Hearing that type of news first thing on a morning, anywhere in the world, is a tough pill to swallow, but the basketball community sends their condolences to his family and daughters during this time of mourning," George said.

Lawrence leaves behind two daughters – Leshawn, nine, and Tishawna, three.