Angus Eve will not receive a new contract before the Normalisation Committee’s term ends next March.
This was confirmed on Saturday by chairman of the NC, Robert Hadad.
Last week, national senior team football coach Eve confirmed he had not yet had discussions about a new contract but expected to have such following his return from a Copa America Teams Seminar in the United States.
Eve’s Soca Warriors are due to play Canada next March in a playoff that will qualify the winners for the Copa America series in the US. That month will also mark the end of his current contract extension.
However, Hadad has ruled out another extension by the NC, whose own extension of tenure will also cease in March.
“His contract ends in March when our term ends, so in principle we agreed that we wanted the coach to run the same time-lines as the Normalisation Committee,” Hadad said on the ISports radio programme on Saturday.
“Subsequent to that, the new in-coming president and the new in-coming ex-co (executive committee) can decide who they want to be their coach. Angus would have every opportunity with them to prove himself before (the end of his tenure) and hopefully, they would continue and they would make that decision. But in principle, we did say all along that we do not think that we should be hiring a coach or anybody for that matter to exist beyond our term.”
Asked whether because of the playoff with Canada coming on the agenda belatedly, the Normalisation Committee had considered extending Eve’s contract beyond March 2024, Hadad said, “we did discuss it...but at the end of the day, we see this as being a decision for the new executive committee and the new president, for them to put in place who they think will do the job to get us to 2026 World Cup.”
Hadad expressed reluctance for the NC to extend itself more than necessary before its tenure ended. “...the Normalisation Committee has been making a lot of decisions without a technical committee in place and we believe that we need to give the new, in-coming executive committee the opportunity to set the football and Trinidad and Tobago Football Association up the way they want it,” he said.
However, the NC chairman gave his full backing to Eve, who got T&T to the quarter-final stage of the CONCACAF Nations League. “Angus though I would say is exceptional,” Hadad said. “He’s done a fantastic job, Angus and his entire team. I would expect him to be very professional because it is in his interest, if his desire is to continue coaching Trinidad and Tobago, to perform in that game on the 23rd.”
Hadad added that the NC’s confidence in Eve had been steady. “We were very optimistic that we would perform well all along,” he said. “Angus took us to where we are today and we had faith in Angus all the way through. We understood what his development plans were. He was very candid with us. He explained to us what he was doing and when something didn’t go right, he would not be running and hiding, he would be discussing the matter with us.
“We thought him (to be) the best option to get us to where we are today. Now that he has gotten us here, yes, it is a little uncomfortable that his term ends in March and he has this very big game, but we believe if he gets us into that game against Argentina (opening Copa America match) and we manage to defeat Canada, we think that the new executive committee would consider him.”
SOURCE: T&T Express