FORMER national striker Nevick Denoon is calling on the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) which is headed by Oliver Camps and has FIFA vice president Jack Warner as its Special Advisor, to do something to help veteran footballers.
Denoon himself a lethal striker in the past for Trinidad and Tobago and the Defence Force, is disappointed over what he feels is the falling standard of the sport in TT.
Being a member of the first TT team to have won the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Championship back in 1981, Denoon expressed the view that people such as “Bertha” who died as a destitute a few years ago, deceased football coach Rodrick Warner and many others, have worked hard to put the sport at a level in TT.
He said, “If not anything else, do it for these people.”
He also expressed similar sentiments to that of the newly formed Veterans Football Foundation (VFF) of Trinidad and Tobago recently, that with so many former national football icons available, they should be used to play critical roles in the development of the sport locally.
“It is really hard to see the sport die the way it is (doing) right now,” Denoon said recently. He feels that things are fundamentally wrong with national teams and lashed out at what he termed “poor administration” of the sport.
“There are no development programmes being undertaken by the football federation so how can we improve,” Denoon asked.
Presently the Trinidad and Tobago Soca Warriors are into the final round of qualifications for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Denoon is less than impressed with the performance of the team and feels that something has to be done if we are to play in South Africa in 2010.
He wants other coaches to be given a fair chance at coaching in TT and calls on the federation to stop recycling coaches, who particularly have been unsuccessful.