Members of the Soca Warriors football team who have represented this country in the past 13 international matches are calling on T&T Football Federation Special Advisor, Jack Warner to meet with them to discuss some discrepancies in their payments.
And the players are even willing to go to Warner’s Ministry of Works and Transport, head office on Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain as early as 3 am today if the need arises. This after members of the national team were left peeved at the local federation as their payment for matches played during the last six months came up short a week ago.
Last Thursday, a number of the players based locally ventured to the Sport Company of T&T (Sportt), Henry Street, Port-of-Spain office to collect their cheques.
It was felt the cheques made out to each player would have brought some Christmas-holiday cheer but that was not the case as the players revealed the figures received by each person was short of what was really owed to them.
The players blamed the situation on the T&TFF and stated that the federation forwarded the wrong figures to Sportt and because of that their payments were short of what was actually owed to them.
“The players know what matches they have played in but somehow the T&TFF has those statistics wrong and this is causing the problem.”
“It will be easier for Sportt to get the proper figures from the players and the team management than the T&TFF because the latter does not seem to have its house in order.
The source said the amount which is actually owed is close to US$195,000 while the figured paid out was around US$40,000.
While some players accepted the money after it was promised the matter would be discussed further, other players opted to leave the cheque at Sportt until everything was cleared up the following day, Christmas Eve.
However, no further change was made and since then the players contacted the federation’s General Secretary Richard Groden, who then informed them to take up the matter with Warner.