Celebrities, Warriors in Tobago
By WALTER ALIBEY (Trinidad Newsday)
Friday, May 25 2007
SOCIAL Development Minister Rene Dumas is expected to line-up for the Celebrities football team when they take on the Soca Warriors in a charity match at the Dwight Yorke Stadium, Tobago tonight from 7 pm.
All proceeds will go toward the newly formed Football Players Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT).
Attempts are also being made to have calypsonians Winston Bailey, whose stage name is Shadow, as well as the 2005 Soca Monarch and Road March champion Sherwin Winchester to line up with the Celebrities.
Former West Indies fastbowler Mervyn Dillon will also make an appearance for the celebrities along with soca artiste Tony Prescott.
The formation of FPATT over the weekend comes in the midst of a controversy surrounding the selection of the best team to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States from June 6 to 24.
The TT team has been placed in Group “B” along with Guatemala, El Salvador and host the United States. Trinidad and Tobago will open their campaign against El Salvador in Los Angeles on June 7.
However a number of international footballers who played at last year’s FIFA World Cup in Germany have not made themselves available because of an ongoing dispute with the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation.
Many are back home to launch the players’ association while the TTFF have gone ahead and selected a squad made up in the main of untried and untested players for the Gold Cup.
Soca Warriors’ captain Stern John has been left out of that team along with defenders Marvin Andrews and Brent Sancho, David Atiba Charles, goalkeeper Kelvin Jack, midfielders Carlos Edwards, Chris Birchall, Kenwyn Jones, Anthony Wolffe, Denzil Theobald, Leslie Fitzpatrick, Silvio Spann and strikers Jason Scotland, Cornel Glenn.
But team coach Wim Rijsbergen has openly expressed his disappointment over the players made available to him.
