Members of the National Senior Team will receive their bonus payments yesterday after it was approved by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation on the weekend.
A total of 55 players, who have been in the National Squad dating back to T&T’s first qualifying match against Dominican Republic, will receive payment from the total of US$1,636,357 which was approved by and will be paid off to them from TTFF Special Advisor Jack Warner. The TTFF has not yet received the payment of qualification earnings from FIFA.
It was agreed with the players that they would receive half the earnings of the Six Million Swiss Francs to the TTFF for qualifying for Germany 2006. However, at the point in time the proposal was presented to the players, which came after three final round matches when T&T held one point, the agreement was that it players who were part of the final round squad would benefit from the amount. Warner then agreed with the players committee that the other players who were part of the team in the second round (T&T had a first round bye) and semi-final round would also receive a bonus payment.
As is the case for Federations and Associations of all qualified countries, 26.1 percent of the Six Million Swiss Francs is also withheld by FIFA for German taxes and insurance for injured players during the World Cup.
The overall structure payment was one based on a points per match system and players’ overall international appearances which was mutually agreed upon by the TTFF and the players. Following that, a balance of US$36,822, the players have decided, will go towards local charity which they themselves will meet to discuss how this is carried out.
The players also expressed their gratitude towards the Warner Group of Companies for payments of match fees and bonus for the World Cup qualifying matches up until the playoff with Bahrain for which the match fees and bonus for the win was met by team sponsor TSTT.
Warner, who made the approval of the payments via cheques and deposits on Monday before boarding a flight on his way to Egypt for the CAF (Africa Confederation) Congress, said: “We are extremely pleased with the way this process was carried out. The players were true professionals and this was most pleasing. I think at the end of the day both parties (the Federation and team management) and the players were happy.
The five-man player committee, consisting of Dwight Yorke, Stern John, Dennis Lawrence, Brent Sancho, Shaka Hislop and Kelvin Jack, felt good about the process.
“The players committee and the players in general are very happy about the way things went and how quickly it happened. They (TTFF) did extradite very well,” spokesperson Sancho said.
The committee wished to further add: “People have tried to change this into a political game as well but it’s not a situation where we are trying to pressure the Government into getting things done. But we prefer rather if there would be some sort of communication from them with the players committee rather than just reading in the press about what they plan to do. We definitely appreciate their intentions but we prefer to get this out of the way before we start playing our football again as a team and concentrating on playing in Germany 2006.”
Head Coach Leo Beenhakker meantime, arrived back in the country with assistant Wim Rijsbergen on Monday to resume preparations with the team. He will take up training with the home-based and American-based players ahead of T&T’s next international warm up match against Iceland on February 28 in England.