Local football was placed in safer hands on Tuesday. Following the signing of a four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) partnership deal between the parent T&T Football Association (TTFA) and the University of T&T (UTT) at the UTT's Chaguanas campus, players, coaches and other coaching staff will now have direct access to the UTT's expertise and facilities.
It will lead to the development of the sport essentially, as well as opportunities that will make professionals out of players in a wide range of careers.
Attending the signing ceremony was Robert Hadad, chairman of the FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee, as well as technical director Anton Corneal, TTFA's general secretary Amiel Mohammed, UTT’s Chairman of the Board of Governors Professor Clement Imbert, President Professor Prakash Persad and UTT’s Senior Manager Sport and Recreation, Ian Pritchard.
Pritchard told Guardian Media Sports on Tuesday that the deal will be an obligation between the parties for advanced research and development to be done during preparation and training, using technology to further develop players. He noted that a scientific approach can also be used for measuring players' performances and readiness.
He said players, coaches and other staff will also have access to their facilities and expertise, which will include rehab services, human resource capacity, and testing methods for athletes to determine their readiness.
According to Pritchard, there will also be the offering of partial scholarships for students/players on the verge of leaving school.
"Through our High Performance programmes, young players in the TTFA High Performance Programmes will get the opportunity to advance their academic careers through partial scholarships etc. This initiative started back in 2007 when the Sport and Recreation Unit of the UTT started offering scholarships for the advancement of young players.
"And the reason I say partial scholarship is because we don't offer room and board like universities abroad, but we offer transportation and insurance, as well as some level of financing."
The MOU is expected to cover a large range of objectives, such as: 1. Seeking to encourage and ensure mutual cooperation and support generally between UTT’s Academy of Sport and TTFA’s Academies and National Teams; 1.1. Lending technical support to each other in an effort to ensure the continued development of football in T&T; 1.2. Advancing coaching education as a priority agenda of this MOU, through mutual cooperation and support generally between UTT’s Academy of Sport and the TTFA.
The embattled football association has committed to: 4.1 to making the TTFA facilities available to UTT. For the purposes of this agreement, “TTFA facilities” shall mean its football fields, courts and the Home of Football at Balmain, Couva, as well as its administrative offices, conference room(s) and any other location that TTFA may reasonably make available to UTT;
4.2 Endorsing, sanction or otherwise approve of the football tournaments arranged, hosted or administered by UTT on the condition that UTT has satisfied TTFA that it has attained the requisite standards and approvals for the hosting of such tournaments;
4.3 to endorse, sanction or otherwise approve of football coaching certification courses arranged, hosted and administered by UTT in conjunction with the TTFA:
4.4 to provide access, where reasonably practicable, to its national teams, both male and female, including the Under-23, U-19, U-17 and Under-15 teams. The access being sought by UTT shall be limited to coaching and training sessions, attendance of such national team members at UTT screening sessions annually, attendance at competitive and friendly matches, and promotional appearances by team members, whether the team members are available individually, in small groups or as an entire team.
On the other hand, the UTT, which has campuses across T&T inclusive of San Fernando, Point Lisas, Camden, Chaguaramas, the ECIAF campus, as well as in the sister isle of Tobago has assured its undertakings will include: 3.1 Where feasible, to make UTT facilities available to TTFA. including classrooms, lecture halls, outdoor courts, auditoriums, outfields, laboratories and such other venues, rooms or locations at UTT campuses that UTT may reasonably make available to TTFA;
3.2 to provide educational and training opportunities, through its academic and coaching staff, associates and/or consultants, to coaches, teams and clubs affiliated to TTFA on topics including but not limited to: (i) national coaching certification (various levels); (ii) anti-doping; (iii) match-fixing, corruption and illegal betting; (iv) safeguarding and child protection; (v) health, fitness, safety and risk management; (vi) sports science; (vii) ethical values and sport; (viii) pre-participation athletic evaluation; (ix) taping and bracing; (x) periodization; (xi) nutrition and sport performance; (xii) sports psychology;(xiii) contractual rights and obligations;
(xiv) intellectual property; and (xv) financial management and taxation 3.3 to offer scholarships where feasible to those inductees of the Programmes that meet
UTT’s criteria for scholarship eligibility;3.4 to offer coaching and technical expertise to TTFA’s national teams; 3.5 to facilitate and foster the building of strategic relationships between UTT’s local, regional and international academic and sporting partners and the TTFA for the benefit of the TTFA.
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UTT, TTFA sign historic MOU on sport development.
By Jonathan Ramnanansingh (T&T Newsday).
Trinidad and Tobago's current crop and future generation of footballers stand to benefit from Tuesday’s signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the TT Football Association (TTFA) and the University of TT (UTT).
The historic agreement allows national youth, senior players and staff an opportunity to access all of UTT’s facilities and programmes to help better understand, nurture and elevate their skills.
At the UTT campus in Charlieville, senior manager, sport and recreation, Ian Pritchard outlined an array of the university’s options for footballers, which they can tap into to become more all-round, multi-faceted players.
Pritchard said the MOU had been long coming and aims not only to elevate T&T’s footballing progress but also aid players’ academic development.
He said the university is being projected as the number one research centre for sport and sport development in T&T. UTT has a centre for kinesiology, physical education and sport where everything is centred on sport development.
Pritchard forecast its benefits to local football.
“At UTT, we have nutrition and sport performance, psychology and how it affects and impacts performance of athletes, ethical values in sport, research and sport science, in terms of getting athletes to perform at their optimum,” he said.
Pritchard also highlighted the rehab centre, led by Adrian Palmer, and UTT’s strength and condition co-ordinators. Additionally, its high-performance athlete development programme serves as a platform for young footballers to balance sport and academics at UTT.
“What we are saying to TTFA in our MOU is that your U-15, U-17 and U-19 teams have the possibility of engaging in continuous education at the university, where they can be trained and housed together, hopefully at the Home of Football.
“That development and working together in an environment like that can always be beneficial to the development of those young footballers who will be the talent of the future generation of T&T football. Our facilities are open to you, our research facility, classrooms and staff.”
Pritchard also said there was ongoing discussion of a programme which entails a series on leadership coaching that will be launched at the UTT.
TTFA normalisation committee chairman Robert Hadad expressed elation at the MOU signing and said the future of T&T football is in good hands, after three years of the TTFA enduring an administrative “category-five hurricane.”
“The magnitude of this situation is quite overwhelming for me. It’s no secret that in three years in this role, it was very difficult to see the sky and sun. But today, peeping through the clouds I see a bright future for all of us, for sport and football in T&T.
“Partnering with the UTT is going to be amazing, and the opportunities are endless. For us, it’s really what UTT has brought to us. We are very excited (about) what the future would bring. Working alongside UTT is going to be tremendous. Keep supporting football and this partnership.”
Chairman of UTT’s board of governors Clement Imbert said athlete rehabilitation remains top priority. UTT is in talks with other stakeholders to increase its reach in this department.
“One of the main pillars in the building of an athlete is the question of rehab. It’s very important because athletes are subject to injury, but also the stresses the muscles undergo. We can have specific programmes in that area at whatever level, whether post-grad or the certificate, that would train people in that specific area.
“That is one of the areas that I see that we need to broaden in terms of providing a holistic development for our athletes.”
Imbert confirmed that UTT will soon be offering, for all sporting disciplines, training for pre-participation assessors. This, he said, would identify, correct and reduce short- and long-term injuries, particularly in new athletes.
“What we have is a lot of young athletes entering sport without any pre-participation examination done, or any testing. We believe that leads to a lot of injury to our athletes, some of which are unable to be corrected later on.
“We would be training these people (assessors) so that (at) those first points of contact with athletes, we’d be able to do the testing and be able to tell if they are ready to participate; if not, what injuries they might be susceptible to. That’s another layer of support that the TTFA can tap into that’s being offered at the UTT.”
UTT president Prakash Persad believes technology also plays an integral role in helping improve TT’s footballers. He wants both the TTFA and UTT to begin working on technologically advanced equipment to aid their individual and overall progression as athletes.
“Can we develop some specific training equipment for footballers? Because we have done so for cricket. We are developing a fast-bowling machine and a variety of things. In terms of training, we can look at that.
“We’ll put a mixed team comprised of engineers and sporting people, where we can develop this equipment and test it. Hopefully it will be jointly marketed by UTT and TTFA worldwide. This is something we want to do and we look forward to it.”
Also at Tuesday’s MOU signing were TTFA normalisation committee general secretary Amiel Mohammed and technical director Anton Corneal, UTT’s cricket instructor and former West Indies bowler Tony Gray, 12-time national champion and table-tennis coach Aleena Edwards and another governor, Michael Cooper.