Melville takes TTFA to court over Soca Warriors name

The bat­tle for the right­ful own­er of the name be­gan many years ago dur­ing Jack Warn­er's era at the helm of the TTFA, but it was on­ly un­der the Ray­mond Tim Kee-led ad­min­is­tra­tion that pro­ceed­in­gs were filed for trade­mark rights in the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope. This was lat­er tak­en up by the David John-Williams-led TTFA.

Melville, who was a sports com­men­ta­tor on the 105.1FM ra­dio sta­tion decades ago, said he was the one who coined the phrase 'So­ca War­riors', a name that has now be­come the of­fi­cial iden­ti­ty of the se­nior na­tion­al men's team and the coun­try's ju­nior teams.

Melville had been locked in talks with a com­mit­tee formed by John-Williams to find a res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter more than two years ago, but he de­cid­ed to ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion when talks broke down over a fi­nan­cial dis­agree­ment. Since then, the TTFA has failed to re­spond to two pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters filed by Melville's lawyers.

Yes­ter­day, Melville said, "Let the truth be told. It's im­por­tant for every­one to know the truth be­hind the 'So­ca War­riors' name, which has been a trea­sure to the na­tion. It is time that this mat­ter is set­tled now, as it has been go­ing on too long."

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, John-Williams said he could not of­fer a com­ment un­til he re­ceives doc­u­ments to see ex­act­ly what his as­so­ci­a­tion is be­ing chal­lenged for.

It is un­der­stood the mat­ter is cur­rent­ly logged at the In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Of­fice (IPO) here in T&T but this of­fice is un­able to give trade­mark rights to any par­ty un­til the lo­cal courts de­cide on own­er­ship.

Guardian Me­dia Sports un­der­stands that a pop­u­lar ra­dio sta­tion is al­so chal­leng­ing for the name rights