Freeze on TTFA bank account off

This means the pro­posed start of the new T-League, which will fea­ture a Tier 1 and 2 com­pe­ti­tions, will be ex­pe­dit­ed.

A high-rank­ing of­fi­cial of the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion con­firmed yes­ter­day that fi­nal pay­ment of over $300,000 was paid ear­li­er this week to com­plete an over­all pay­ment of over $500,000 to the T&T Fut­sal team which dragged the David John-Williams-led TTFA to court for un­paid wages, per diem, re­fresh­ment and oth­er ex­pens­es.

How­ev­er, Clay­ton Mor­ris, the Fut­sal coach said he nor his at­tor­neys were in­formed about the pay­ment up to yes­ter­day.

The TTFA of­fi­cial who spoke un­der con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, was re­luc­tant to con­firm the pay­ment made, for fear that some­one else be­ing owed by the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion, will grasp at the op­por­tu­ni­ty at an­oth­er gar­nishee or­der.

Fol­low­ing the or­der in April, the court seized $270, 871.33 and since then, the TTFA has been un­able to pay salaries to its of­fice staff and oth­er mem­bers of the T&T Un­der-17 team staff and play­ers who con­test­ed the re­cent CON­CA­CAF U-17 Cham­pi­onship, which was al­so a FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fi­er in the Unit­ed States ear­li­er this month.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was al­so in­formed that some staff mem­bers from the un­der-15 team were al­so paid. The TTFA has been in­debt­ed to a num­ber of peo­ple, in­clud­ing its tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor An­ton Corneal.

The Fut­sal play­ers who are set to ben­e­fit from the pay­ment are - Kevin Gra­ham, Adri­an Pirthys­ingh, cap­tain Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar, Col­in Joseph, Ker­ry Joseph, Jameel Nep­tune, Ish­mael Daniel, An­tho­ny Small, Ke­vaughn Con­nell, Ke­ston Guy, Ka­reem Per­ry, Jamel Lewis, Noel Williams, Bevon Bass and Cyra­no Glen, the younger broth­er of for­mer TT strik­er Cor­nell Glen.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day Brent San­cho, a mem­ber of the T-League com­mis­sion ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with the de­vel­op­ment. He said he was hap­py to have heard this, since many of their chal­lenges hinged on the in­abil­i­ty of the FI­FA, through the FI­FA For­ward Project and the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T to de­posit monies in­to the TTFA ac­count for the pur­pose of start­ing the league.

"The re­al­i­ty is that we couldn't have done any­thing with no mon­ey. We had a press con­fer­ence on Tues­day to give an up­date on the T- League but we couldn't have giv­en a start­ing date or a bud­get for the tour­na­ment un­til we re­ceived the mon­ey."

He not­ed, "Now I can as­sure you that a lot more in­fo will be forth­com­ing." The com­mis­sion, be­ing led by busi­ness­man Lyn­d­say Gillette, is ex­pect­ed to hold an­oth­er press con­fer­ence soon to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion he could not pro­vide to the me­dia Tues­day.

San­cho said his com­mis­sion has al­so gone full speed ahead to ap­point key of­fi­cials for the man­age­ment of the T-League, such as a mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion­al, a li­cens­ing and a com­pe­ti­tions and tour­na­ment's of­fi­cial.

Ac­cord­ing to San­cho in­ter­views for these po­si­tions be­gan on Mon­day and will con­tin­ue to­day. He is pre­dict­ing top qual­i­ty com­pe­ti­tion in the two tiers, re­veal­ing that they are ex­pect­ing Ja­maican Sports Net­work Sports­max and FLOW to be on board when it starts.