Dundee threaten T&TFF.

[Flex]

Keeper Jack fined by Scottish club.
Julien Neaves (Express).[/size]

Dundee manager Alan Kernaghan has threatened the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (T&TFF) with a complaint to FIFA and separate plane trips and fees for Kelvin Jack after the goalkeeper missed Saturday's game away to Ross County.
Kernaghan refused Jack time off from his domestic duties and ordered him to play for the Scottish First Division club on Saturday at Ross County although the international custodian would have flown 38 hours and played twice within a week.
A delayed BWIA flight to London on Friday evening meant that Jack missed his connection to Scotland on Saturday, though.
Kernaghan accepted his excuse although he still fined the player nearly $20,500.
He had stern words for the T&TFF.
"We'll be raising the matter with the Trinidad FA," Kernaghan told the Scottish Sun. "We have to get the information from them first then, we have to go through the SFA here I think first. That could then lead to a higher complaint with FIFA."
Kernaghan also suggested separate travel arrangements for Jack in the future.
"I think we'll have to go down the Rangers route and do it all ourselves and just send them the bill," he said. "I've seen it myself when I was with the Republic (of Ireland) and Manchester United used to send the private jet for (Roy) Keane and (Denis) Irwin... It'll make sure it won't happen again."
Kernaghan's stance was typical of the Scotland's approach to their Trinidad and Tobago employees. Falkirk's Russell Latapy, St Johnstone's Jason Scotland and Glasgow Rangers' Marvin Andrews all represented their Scottish clubs on Saturday, with Jack the only absentee.
In contrast, Gillingham defender Ian Cox was the only one from eight England-based Trinidad and Tobago players to be fielded on Saturday.
Kernaghan, who is in his first season as a manager, saw Dundee concede 12 goals in their last five matches without Jack, including Saturday's 3-0 loss at Ross County.
Dundee, who were relegated from the Scottish Premiership last season under Jim Duffy, now lie in sixth spot on the ten-team table. Jack joined Dundee after a spell with Reading, having previously played with T&T clubs San Juan Jabloteh, W Connection and Doc's Khelwalaas.Yorke: I never considered skipping Sydney FC match.
Tribalfootball News.[/size]

Sydney FC ace Dwight Yorke says he never considered missing Saturday's A-League clash with Perth Glory, despite Trinidad & Tobago's World Cup success last week. "It would have been wrong of me not to come back and play for my club," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"When I left England, a few eyebrows were raised. People were saying coming to Australia might not be the ideal move. But the last 4½ months have been a dream. The people of Australia have been fantastic towards me. The support has been enormous.
"And now I've qualified for the World Cup with my country, which is icing on the cake. It's a dream come true. It's been 16 years I've been playing for my country. Words can't really describe what it was like at the final whistle. It's been amazing, unbelievable. Playing in the World Cup, it really hasn't sunk in yet. For a country as small as ours (population 1.1 million) it's an incredible achievement."
"To be honest, I don't know how to describe my feelings and I don't know what to say. I must phone my mother first because she is back in Tobago and she will be going crazy about this.

[Girl Warrior]

Dundee moving real dread man, Jack said he tried his best to get there on time and they imposing such a high penalty on him, wow. I mean, I could understand their stance on the situation and it does look bad that the other players made it to their respective clubs on time while he got delayed. Brechin City is playing Dundee this weekend and Jack is the goalie so hopefully he'll pick up where Murray/Soutar had lapsed and Kernaghan might get in a better mood.

[dombasil]

De man should ah go back straight from Bahrain, jes like de res ah dem. Dem fellas paying he salary.

[cm103]

De man should ah go back straight from Bahrain, jes like de res ah dem. Dem fellas paying he salary.

Well he must expect some backlash for not showing up but is a one-and-done. Ah doubt that side have a private jet to send for him but at least he get d manager to act as travel agent now. I doh see Jack repeating this anytime soon.

[trinibug]

While I understand the concerns of the manager - after all, his job on the line too when they loss. He have to understand that last week wasn't just a once-in-a-lifetime event. It was a Historic event. It only have one first time. (doh worry, some of allyuh go have one sooner or later ).

What should reall have happened is that the Gov't, (as much as I hate to say it b/c i feel T&T does expect the gov't to do everything) since they call back players, should have made arrangements for them to get to T&T and then get back to thier clubs. Win-win. You get the parade and the national unity and pride that we need. And the players and clubs also meet thier comittments. Is not like if all them men going somewher e different. 1 flight and all man jack reach. (well, except Yorke).

As it is now, the Gov't should step in and pay Jack fine. They owe him that much at least.

[rastafari]

DIS MAN GETTING MEH VEX. WE QUALIFY AND NOW DEY JUST TRYING TO JUMBEE WE. DE TING HAPPEN AND DEY STILL GOING ON ABOUT IT.
IF I WAS JACK I WOULD BE LOOKING FUH ANOTHER CLUB BECAUSE DEY IN NO BIG SIDE. ANYWAY JACK WARNER GO DEAL WITH DEM

JAH BLESS RASTAFARI

[marcus]

JUST AS WE EXPECT CLUBS TO UPHOLD THE REQUIREMENT THAT PLAYERS BE RELEASED FOR INTERNATIONAL DUTY, THE TTFA MUST ABIDE BY THE SAME RULE AND REVERT THE PLAYERS BACK TO THEIR RESPECTIVE CLUBS. EVENTS LIKE THIS COULD ONLY CAUSE BREAKDOWNS IN TALKS BETWEEN TTFA AND CLUBS IN THE FUTURE... AND IT WILL HURT THE PLAYERS MORE THAN ANYTHING...

[Kingk]

JUST AS WE EXPECT CLUBS TO UPHOLD THE REQUIREMENT THAT PLAYERS BE RELEASED FOR INTERNATIONAL DUTY, THE TTFA MUST ABIDE BY THE SAME RULE AND REVERT THE PLAYERS BACK TO THEIR RESPECTIVE CLUBS. EVENTS LIKE THIS COULD ONLY CAUSE BREAKDOWNS IN TALKS BETWEEN TTFA AND CLUBS IN THE FUTURE... AND IT WILL HURT THE PLAYERS MORE THAN ANYTHING...

his job is on the line also
so he will create a big fuss bout it
i happen to agree wit him, up to a point because of his situation ( 17yr old backup)

[Redditch Valiant]

JUST AS WE EXPECT CLUBS TO UPHOLD THE REQUIREMENT THAT PLAYERS BE RELEASED FOR INTERNATIONAL DUTY, THE TTFA MUST ABIDE BY THE SAME RULE AND REVERT THE PLAYERS BACK TO THEIR RESPECTIVE CLUBS. EVENTS LIKE THIS COULD ONLY CAUSE BREAKDOWNS IN TALKS BETWEEN TTFA AND CLUBS IN THE FUTURE... AND IT WILL HURT THE PLAYERS MORE THAN ANYTHING...

Well said, Marcus. As I said before, you can't expect managers to be happy about releasing players if there's a chance they won't make it back in time to play.

[Dundee Mad]

This has been done to death and by the sound of it back home Kelvin will pay his fine and play in goal this weekend.

Some of Kernaghans comments will simply be because he is under immense pressure to return Dundee to the Premier League and he has no chance of achieving that now.

What might be of longer term interest to TnT players looking to move abroad is the amount of clubs who are having the same issues. Would it be better to try and get the players all back to their clubs more quickly so that the clubs cannot generalise and say that they won't take such and such a player because there is no guarantee they will be back from international duty on time?

[palos]

This has been done to death and by the sound of it back home Kelvin will pay his fine and play in goal this weekend.

Some of Kernaghans comments will simply be because he is under immense pressure to return Dundee to the Premier League and he has no chance of achieving that now.

What might be of longer term interest to TnT players looking to move abroad is the amount of clubs who are having the same issues. Would it be better to try and get the players all back to their clubs more quickly so that the clubs cannot generalise and say that they won't take such and such a player because there is no guarantee they will be back from international duty on time?

I think as in anything else, 2 hands have to clap.  There is give and take in every situation.  At the end of the day, clubs will do whatever they feel it takes to get better in a manner that makes financial sense.  If that means signing a player from T&T, they will do so.  Clubs all know that signing international players comes with "baggage".  The potential return on that risk outweights the liability I would assume otherwise they would not continue to sign overseas players.

Similarly, National Federations are happy their players get to go to these clubs so they can benefit from the facilities, training, exposure etc that may not necessarily be readily available at home.  They too know that there are challenges with clubs' reluctance to release players for international duty etc.

Not long ago, the Inter Milan owner threatened not to sign any Brazilian players after some challenges with Ronaldo and the club versus country issue.  Look at his Inter team today.....Adriano, Zunga, Julio Cesar (the goalie), etc are all integral parts of his team.

Thigs get heated and then blow over.  Nothing personal in most cases.  That's just the business of football.

[Dundee Mad]

On a wider scale away from TnT this kind of thing is becoming more common. The African Nations Cup being held in the middle of European seasons never goes down well, likewise some strange friendlies played by the likes of Japan when there are no other international matches planned on non FIFA designated nights.

Somewhere along the line it will all blow up and things will come to a head.

[dcs]

Over the course of a season how many club games do our players miss?

I guess we could start with Kelvin and Chris since they play on your teams.

How many games have they missed against the total number played.

Also, how difficult have they found it to mesh with the team due to absence (I not talking about the manager being an ass and benching the player as punishment for playing for their country)

Have the players' performances improved at all due to their International Experience (confidence, working with better coaches, playing against different/better opposition)?

Has the club gained anything tangible marketing wise from having an International Player on the roster?  (Name of the club mentioned across the world when the player performs well, journalists paying more attention to the club, increased sales of the players T-shirts)

At the end of the day wins are what determine the achievements of the clubs so I'd like to know if there is any tangible benefit to the clubs by having their players participate in International Competition....or is it just a complete LOSS with no GAIN.

Has Birchall played any better since joining us?
Has Kelvin played any better since grabbing the starting spot with us?

[Dundee Mad]

Really can't talk for the others but in recent years Dundee had internationals from around the world including TnT, Georgia, China and Poland. On the whole there hasn't been too many problems but I think the general feeling  (not mine mind I'm talking about managers and the like) is that somehow non_European internationals are somehow less important than European ones.
This is an attitude that needs to be changed and quickly however this is also where non_European national associations need to also help themselves and get the players back more quickly so as not to support the myth that they are less reliable.

In Kelvin Jacks case some of those points are hard to quantify because a)he's a goalie and b)he's never been first choice keeper. I think the biggest issue was that as a back up keeper he should be ready to grab a chance but when the chance came he was thousands of miles away.

I would also question, to a certain extent, whether Dundee can fulfill the career ambitions of a World Cup goalie.

[davidy233]

It's actually hard to tell whether Kelvin has played any better since becoming a regular international, because he was very much Dundee's reserve goalkeeper last season and was established as T&T's first choice quite a long time before becoming Dundee's first choice keeper.

In fact he only got the starting place at the start of the season because Derek Soutar was injured, but he did reasonably well when he got his chance. Another injury to Soutar will probably have saved Kelvin's career at Dundee after the weekend's events.

As to marketing - Dundee haven't gained any marketing potential from having Kelvin in the World Cup qualifying squad - The Socawarriors getting to Germany made the newspapers here last week but it wasn't a big thing, We were proud to have a player in the squad, and just as pleased for Brent Sancho who was a big favourite here last season.

I'd doubt if we will make a single penny (cent) from Kelvin being an international, and I'd doubt that it will make any difference to a future transfer fee - because most players from Scottish clubs aren't worth any fee nowadays - even if they are good, Kelvin certainly wouldn't command a fee - he was on trial at Brighton in pre-season and they weren't interested in signing him.

He's a decent keeper and a nice lad, I was disappointed when he didn't turn up at the weekend as I wanted to be proud of one of our players playing for his country - that got soured when he failed to arrive. I was glad to see him back at Dundee, he looked very cold when I watched him play for the reserves on Monday night.

He wasn't to blame in anyway for Dundee getting beaten at Ross County though, 17 year old Scott Murray played very well.

[Pointman]

Fellas, this is a PRIME example of why we need to develop OUR OWN local league so that more players can earn a decent living and not chase the Euro and Pounds etc.

[truetrini]

Pointman, we cyar compete..too much waggonist in T&T football.  de stadia and dem go be empty too much...