Jack Warner has emphatically stated that he is no longer in a position to fund Trinidad and Tobago football and needs Government and corporate assistance if T&T’s ambition to qualify for another World Cup is to become a reality.
Warner was responding yesterday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel to questions about the status of the national senior team and coach Russell Latapy.
The national team has been idle since the end of the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign last October and there has been no word on whether Latapy will be re-appointed following a six-month stint in charge.
’I cannot continue funding the entire thing...and of course finding myself out on a limb. I am doing this stuff now for women’s football because I have to. And when that is finished, I am finished,’ Warner insisted. ’I cannot do it alone anymore. I have been doing it for 20...25 years and I am prepared for the Government to play its role, along with corporate Trinidad and Tobago.
’So, until we get some kind of funding we have to find some kind of intermediate measures.’
Warner indicated that the matter concerning the team and Latapy is being handled, but funding is a major problem.
’We have appointed a three-man committee to look into all aspects of this. The three-man committee comprises Jack Warner, Keith Look Loy and Richard Groden and they are meeting to look at it. However, one of the consideration is funding,’ he added.
’Jamaica just put forward a budget of one billion (Jamaica) dollars for their four-year campaign. They just announced that. Our budget was done a couple weeks ago and we will need something in excess of $20-30 million over a four-year period. We have to have top coaches...we have to give these guys overseas training and camps and tours.
’It can’t be a haphazard business and until we can sit down and talk with people (Government) seriously about the future of the team, we will have to have some intermediate measures about the future of the team. And we are contemplating that now.’
Warner pointed out that other CONCACAF countries such as Jamaica, Costa Rica and Canada were already well ahead of Trinidad and Tobago in their preparation for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
’We will have to play catch up because while they have funding and support and so on, we have had none,’ he said. ’The last time we got funds was last year September and for for half-month. We were told that it would be going until December. This guy (national team manager David Muhammed) has not been paid for months.’