Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) president Raymond Tim Kee has not set a date by which he will offer job contracts for over two dozen technical staff members.
Tim Kee met with coaches and administrative staff for all the national teams on May 14 to respond to their concerns head-on. The football president, who is an insurance salesman by trade, said the meeting went “very well.”
But, in the end, there was little by way of satisfaction for the TTFA’s various technical staff members. Once more, Tim Kee suggested that the Sport Minister Brent Sancho should pay their salaries and stipends.
“The timeline (for job contracts or payment to coaches) has to be blurred because I am going to the minister to have him reconsider his stance on not paying coaches,” Tim Kee told Wired868.
He vowed to press Sancho to honour a $9.9 million Cabinet note promised to the TTFA and suggested that the Sport Minister’s stance was embarrassing Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
Thus far, Sancho has insisted that every State promise comes with certain stipulations.
“For every single governing body that I have, the Ministry of Sport has made some sort of promise or gesture towards payment,” said Sancho, in a previous interview. “But every body has also made a promise towards transparency and proper governance.
“Two hands must clap. They have their part to play and, if they don’t live up to it, the other hand cannot clap.”
At present, National Senior Team head coach Stephen Hart and TTFA technical director Kendall Walkes are the only technical staff members with job contracts. And Tim Kee suggested that, despite no concrete assurances to his other coaches, his meeting with the national technical staff members was a success.
“It went very very well indeed,” said Tim Kee. “I made it quite clear what they are getting involved in. We have no money but we are doing things and we hope to attract benefactors.
“If anyone has a problem or wants a contract, I cannot do that… I said I don’t want people to have expectations which are far-fetched or untrue.”
The football president denied a claim, made anonymously to Wired868, that he promised to fire any technical staff member who complained to the media.
“That is a diabolical lie (and) absolute nonsense,” said Tim Kee. “What I said is we have to put a policy in place for all our national teams as far as talking to the media. We have decided that the coach and manager will talk to the media about the team. They can talk about themselves but not the team…
“After those policies are put in place, if any official (or player) breaks that policy, they will be asked to leave the team… They must first get approval from the manager and the coach.
“That was the context.”
The Sport Ministry and the TTFA were due to make their second joint statement yesterday with regards to the future relationship between the two entities. However, none was forthcoming.
At present, the TTFA is anxious for the Sport Ministry to resume funding of its programmes while Sancho needs the football body’s approval to start a State-run Women’s Professional League, which is tentatively scheduled for mid-June.
Tim Kee is cautiously optimistic and claimed that his decision to take KPMG auditor along was a sign of good faith from the football body, which is still unable to produce the necessary audited financial documents.
“We had a fairly temperate meeting before and I expect things to be good,” Tim Kee told Wired868. “I was very forthright and I thought it finished nicely.”