Warner vows to take football to the people.
By: Shaun Fuentes.[/size]
Penal/Debe area benefits for football donations.
Over fifty schools and clubs from the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation benefited from a contribution of footballs from FIFA Vice President Jack Warner on Monday at a ceremony at the Wilson Road Recreation Ground in Penal.
Warner, special advisor to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation responded to a recent call from Dr Allen Sammy, chairman of the Penal/Debe regional corporation for assistance in developing football in the area and the CONCACAF President did not hesitate in deciding to provide the footballs which will be used by the schools and clubs in the respective physical education and football training programmes.
Warner, during his address, also announced that the T&T “Soca Warriors” team will be the stars of a “Road Show” on their return home in May and he promised the members of the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation that they shall be part of the venues of which skipper Dwight Yorke and his team passes through during the motorcade. This is expected to follow in the days after the friendly international against Peru on May 10 before the team departs for its final training camps in England and Austria before its opening 2006 World Cup encounter against Sweden on June 10. The team will also visit Tobago during the period following the farewell international friendly.
Sammy, also second vice president of the T&T Cricket Board, spoke of his request to Warner recently, saying” I wrote to him and said that we in need. We are not in an area that historically that has received the resources of the state and can you help us with some footballs.”
“While the area is known to be a cricket area is known as a cricket area but part of our development agenda for sport we are also pushing football. We are responsible for over thirty-three recreation grounds in this corporation and we were fortunate to get some resources from the Sports Company which helped us to get this air conditioned room for this function. But we are in need of better electricity and repairs will be done to the ground and the carpark. We want to focus on excellence in sports. We are on the map for the wrong reasons – for flooding,” Sammy said in his address.
In describing Warner, Sammy added “Everybody thinks he’s from ‘Town’ because he’s doing well. He was born in humble circumstances also from humble beginnings. And this is another reason to emulate him. He has earned his money honestly and he has had a vision for football and he has stuck to that. I know he is also willing to help him in cricket. This a man who understands the need that if you have push something, you must invest in and today it’s an investment in youth which we are extremely proud of.”
Warner said he felt the time was ideal to get involved in such a project in the Penal/Debe area and he intends to do the same in other similar areas in the country. The contribution of 120 footballs from Warner and by extension the TTFF, will be distributed among the schools, both primary and secondary and clubs within the area, each receiving two footballs.
“I have come here because I really want to identify with the project which Dr Sammy and the Penal/Debe regional corporation has started. There is a feeling in this country now that football is for Africans and cricket for Indians. I want to come here to explode that myth. There is no divine right that says that any sport is for any particular race.
Therefore what we have to do is to explode that myth where we believe that to play football you have to be strong and be African, To play football you have to have one common characteristic - you have to be sensible and that is the way to play any sport,” Warner told the gathering.
He also announced that he will fund a two-day live-in football workshop for a coach from every school in the Penal/Debe area at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence.
Warner added that he will also assist to underwrite the costs for maintenance of the Wilson Road Recreation Ground and other similar venues in the area.
He also used the opportunity to comment on the calls to change the T&T team name from “Soca Warriors” to “Soca Chutney Warriors.”
“That may very well have been so. But I felt it is too late in the day to make that change,” he said, due to the fact that all the branding has been completed and the rest of the world already knows the T&T National Team as the “Soca Warriors” and there have already been calypso and soca tunes carrying the name.
“ But even if it was possible, I felt it would have been cosmetic. If you don’t carry the sport to the people in the community then you would have failed them in fact you would have fooled them,” he said, adding that is was preferable to take the game and the team to them. “Let them be part of it,” he said. He also revealed that he has asked team sponsor TSTT to assist in setting up large screens for people in the rural areas to view T&T’s participation at the 2006 World Cup.
“These are the kind of things we must do to spread the sport. In that regard, you can expect to find a national footballer in Penal or Debe with the same ease you will find one in Port of Spain and San Fernando.”
The FIFA boss concluded by saying “We have to bring the benefits of the sport to the people and to the people of areas who have been denied over the years If I had stayed there in Rio Claro (his place of birth) today I would not have been where I am and it is wrong for us to leave to our communities to progress and it is wrong to also to have to leave our communities, progress, and not give back. Therefore it is in this regard, that I want to come to every Penal, every Debe, every Caroni and every Siparia in the country and bring football to the people because more things are done by sport and moreso football than we can possibly ever imagine.”
