END THIS NOW
NATIONAL COACH Terry Fenwick said the time needed to get the men’s national team prepared for World Cup qualifiers next year is fast running out and he hopes the ongoing dispute between former Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) executives and FIFA to be once and for all resolved this week.
T&T have been suspended from international football after former TTFA president Williams Wallace and his vice-presidents took FIFA -- world football’s governing body -- to the local High Court, challenging their dismissal (the TTFA) in March while being replaced by a FIFA-instituted normalisation committee, headed by local businessman Robert Hadad.
The case is due to be heard on Friday, before Madame Justice Carol Gobin. Following the judgment, Wallace has promised to allow delegates to decide the future of local football.
“I want this sorted out by Friday this week. One way or the other,” stated Fenwick, adding, “So we can move things on and get my team playing by November.” He said that on both sides of the issue—Wallace’s United TTFA faction and FIFA—administrators seem unconcerned about the damage being done to the senior men’s team’s World Cup ambitions.
“They are not recognising the damage they are doing by dragging this on,” Fenwick reiterated. “With William Wallace and Keith Look Loy on one side and Hadad on the next side, they are not realising the time that I need for players to come together,” he noted, adding, “On paper I have some excellent new players that I have identified. But I still have not seem them.”
The former England national further stressed: “There is a two-week FIFA international window where everyone is playing games. They are getting on with things and here we are, still trying to figure out the issues with ownership of the TTFA.”
Fenwick revealed that having identified players, he still has not been given the opportunity to begin preliminary work with them. “There is a FIFA window coming up. They got a fortnight off... No games, no nothing. We have not organised anything,” he lamented. “Not even here in Trinidad have I been able to call a squad together and maybe even play a game among ourselves, because of the state of football here.”
He went on further: “No one is taking into consideration that these windows are for a reason, so we can prepare and organise. After this we got one more FIFA window in November, and then we’ve got World Cup qualifiers next year.”
Fenwick is adamant that he needs to see his players on the ground so as to have an idea which combination of players works. He said that, ironically, even with these limitations, the administrators will still expect his team to win. “Even if I had a camp, it would help,” Fenwick said. “We have another window coming up in November and we need to get things going,” he concluded.