New T-League kicks off Oct 4

This era will see a two-tier League, with Tier 1 com­pris­ing of 10 teams in the T&T Pro League, and Tier 2 fea­tur­ing 14 T&T Su­per League clubs. San­cho, the Cen­tral FC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor made the com­ment in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Sham­fa Cud­joe's claims that or­ga­niz­ers of the league were at fault for the de­layed start, as they failed to sup­ply her min­istry with cru­cial in­for­ma­tion re­quest­ed, in or­der to re­ceive monies need­ed for the start of the com­pe­ti­tion.

San­cho said the doc­u­ments, which cov­ered the fi­nan­cial sta­tus of clubs, as well as if the said clubs are TTFA/FI­FA com­pli­ant, were sub­mit­ted on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Cud­joe said the T-League or­ga­niz­ers were al­so tardy in de­liv­er­ing in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the sched­uled start of the T-League and the num­ber of teams that were set to par­tic­i­pate.

San­cho speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia Sports in an in­ter­view said, "The chal­lenge has al­ways been the tim­ing of the funds. The com­mis­sion has met on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and tried to put things in place. There have been some chal­lenges with monies, as it re­lates to the FI­FA For­ward Pro­gramme, as well as chal­lenges for gov­ern­ment's sub­ven­tion to the pro league clubs."

The Cen­tral FC boss said he thought that doc­u­men­ta­tion re­quest­ed by the min­istry was sort­ed out. "The com­mu­ni­ca­tion lines have bro­ken down as it re­lates to who was sup­posed to be re­spon­si­ble for send­ing the in­for­ma­tion, whether it be the com­mis­sion, the T&TFA, whether it be the pro league. That be­ing said all com­mu­ni­ca­tions have been up and run­ning, every­one has been work­ing hard. I know the in­for­ma­tion has been sent in."

Ac­cord­ing to San­cho, "The in­for­ma­tion that the min­is­ter is seek­ing, is very new to us as pro league clubs. Last year we had a dif­fer­ent set of tar­gets that we had to hit. This year was dif­fer­ent for us. We have nev­er been asked the type of ques­tions that the min­is­ter re­quest­ed, so ob­vi­ous­ly, the clubs had to get things to­geth­er in a way they nev­er used to be­fore."

Ear­li­er, Min­is­ter Cud­joe said, "We have been giv­en the cheque from the Min­istry of Fi­nance and there­fore the gov­ern­ment is ready, but there is in­for­ma­tion that the TTFA and the Pro League need to sub­mit the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion to the min­istry. Of course, you know the spe­cif­ic clubs that are in­volved, all have to be fi­nan­cial. Al­so, the last time we met with them, they stat­ed that they're re­struc­tur­ing to fit the T-League struc­ture and they will get back to us with nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion."

She added, "We would have re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion as to, is this league go­ing to hap­pen?, is it go­ing to hap­pen in this fis­cal year and if so, when? And if so, how many teams will be par­tic­i­pat­ing, and they have been un­able to re­spond to us."