T&T delegation arrives in Leipzig for World Cup Draw
By Shaun Fuentes
FIFA Vice President Jack Warner and a host of Germany 2006 World Cup Organising Committee officials welcomed the country’s contingent for Friday’s Draw upon their arrival in Leipzig on Wednesday evening.
TTFF President Oliver Camps and General Secretary Richard Groden led the arrival party and Warner, here since earlier in the week for other FIFA meetings, was at the Renaissance Hotel to greet his contingent. Other members of the delegation arriving here so far are Team manager Bruce Aanansen, Press Officer Shaun Fuentes, team assistant manager George Joseph, Cultural liaison officer Terry Joseph, security officer Roy Augustus, Tracy Davidson of the Tourism Development company. Dr James Hepple, also of the Tourism Company is expected to arrive in time for Friday’s Grand Draw.
Upon check in at the Hotel, the T&T delegation also received welcome letters from Bernd Listner, Honorary Consul of the Republic of T&T.
“We share your happiness that Trinidad and Tobago has qualified for the World Championship in Germany and are excited at which places the team trained by Mr Leo Beenhakker will play,” Listner stated.
Already, there has been a huge fanfare over T&T’s participation with several television crews requesting permission to follow the T&T delegation around and putting forward proposals to follow the “Soca Warriors” in their build up to the Finals. Sky Sports is particularly interested in spending the next few days with the T&T delegation, following the site visits among other activities as well as producing a documentary on the “Soca Warriors”.
“So far everything has indicated that this is World Cup level,” Camps told TTFF Media. “I think while we are here representing the country, everyone must be proud of the fact that we are on display worldwide and I have every bit of confidence that we will take all the benefits from something like this,” added a man who was only a guest at the 1998 Draw prior to this one. He twice came close in 1974 and 1990 when he was manager of the team then.
While Camps and company arrived here to represent, Warner, without a doubt, even in his capacity as FIFA Vice President and CONCACAF President, is the proudest individual in Leipzig with regards to T&T’s qualification and has duly been the centre of attraction thus far.
The committee also approved the composition of the names in the other pots as well as the procedure for the final draw.
The committee based its criteria for seeding the teams on the 32 finalists' performances at the FIFA World Cup finals in 2002 and 1998 (ratio 2:1) and the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking in the years 2005, 2004 and 2003 (ratio 1:1:1). Brazil consequently attained the maximum of 64 points. Italy with 44 points – a one-point lead over the USA (43) and six points ahead of the Netherlands (38) – also heads a group (cf. the complete tables).
T&T is in Pot 4 with 1 Iran, 2. Japan , 3. Korea Republic , 4. Saudi Arabia , 5. Costa Rica and the USA. The FIFA World Cup regulations stipulate that geographical criteria must also be taken into account in the draw. Each group may not include more than one team per confederation, with the exception of Europe, which has 14 representatives. Consequently, six of the eight groups will comprise two European teams. Serbia and Montenegro were allocated to a special pot to avoid drawing three European teams into one group. The reason for the decision allocating one of the nine remaining European representatives into this bowl was the FIFA/Coca-Cola Ranking in November 2005, in which Serbia and Montenegro occupied 47th place – the lowest position of the teams in question.
T&T head coach Leo Beenhakker arrives on Thursday on a private jet out of Holland with other Dutch World Cup coaches Guus Hiddink (Australia), Dick Advocaat (South Korea) and Marco Van Basten (Netherlands).
Thursday will also see the arrival of FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the opening of the information stands will take place. These stands will deal specifically with accommodation, transportation, ticketing, marketing and venues.
There will also be a marketing workshop which the TTFF is expected to be involved in and the second part of the FIFA Executive Committee meeting will take place at the Messe Leipzig Hotel. The day’s activities will close with a FIFA banquet in Glashalle, Leipzig.
