NATIONAL team coaches have been told to wait another week for payment of outstanding salaries, the Fifa-appointed normalisation committee not having met the May month-end promise it issued a few weeks ago.
However, National Football Coaches of Trinidad and Tobago (NFCTT) Interim president Jefferson George is holding on to hope that in a week’s time original promises will be met. Former W Connection goalkeeper George confirmed that salaries were not in bank accounts at month’s end as promised but is buoyed having been in communication with the FIFA-appointed normalisation committee.
“We haven’t received pay as yet. But we have been in communication with them and we are hopeful of receiving the payment this week,” stated George.
“We got confirmation that the payment will be this week from the normalisation committee. So we are just waiting to alert our members when they can get to the bank,” George added.
Promised by the end of May after a virtual meeting, the funds may now come in the first week of this month. George disclosed no reason for the postponement. However, it is known that the normalisation committee has no cash in the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) accounts and has been awaiting its latest disbursement of FIFA funding.
“The last time there was a little false start where guys were going to check their accounts and that kind of thing before the funds were there,” stated George, “We are trying to avoid that.”
The normalisation committee had promised and paid national coaches’ 50 per cent of outstanding salaries following a 2020 protest by the coaches but has since failed to honour the payment of the balance of the outstanding salaries. Subsequently, the normalisation committee had a virtual meeting with the NFCTT in the first week of May and vowed to pay the outstanding money. Representing the NFCTT at the virtual meeting were interim president George and Angus Eve, while Judy Daniel, Nigel Romano and Trevor Nicholas Gomez represented the normalisation committee, minus chairman Robert Hadad. Following that early May 2021 meeting, another Eve had stated that the main issue between the bodies had been a breakdown in communication. Eve said the main problem national coaches have had since the normalisation committee was installed a year ago by FIFA, was being left in the dark.
“We never had an issue with them except the communication issue,” Eve said, “They were saying they did not get the funding, they were expecting to get at a particular time, but they did not get back to us,” Eve had said.
SOURCE: T&T Express