PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – President of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) Oliver Camps said yesterday he was awaiting word from his legal team after the TTFF had been ordered by the High Court here to pay one million dollars (US$166 660) to its 2006 World Cup Squad. Camps told a local radio station that he had not yet seen the judgement handed down late Monday, and was waiting to hear from his lawyers on the matter.
But the British Guardian newspaper in a report yesterday said that the ruling, released late on Monday, was the beginning of the end of a long legal process that had seen TTFA special adviser and FIFA vice-president Austin ‘Jack’ Warner accused of repeatedly failing to deliver on promises made to the national team.
The judgment also calls for formal accounts relating to the period leading up to and including the 2006 World Cup to be prepared by the TTFF, accompanied by a verifying affidavit.
The newspaper said that this would be a crucial element in the players’ struggle to receive the 50 per cent of all income the TTFF promised them, that was received from commercial sponsorships and from FIFA in relation to their World Cup appearance four years ago.
The Guardian said it had seen the judgment of an Arbitration hearing and that the 50 per cent had been the sum Warner promised the players would be paid, with the squad believing it is due up to six million pounds in unpaid fees.
The newspaper report quotes Shaka Hislop, the goalkeeper at the 2006 World Cup as saying that “Warner made promises. We were told we would get 50 per cent of all the commercial money.
“When we were eventually told what that would be it was TT$5 000 (US$833) a man, which we knew it could not be. There were contracts made that we signed with Adidas and a number of other companies around Trinidad and Tobago.
“The TTFA was happy to brag about the size of those contracts. We made our feelings known and questioned Jack Warner’s accounting skills.
“The TTFA is about Warner and almost no one else. I felt very let down. It was our proudest moment as a football nation and once the offer was made of TT$5 000 a man we felt desperately let down.
“It was a slap in the face of everything we had done and how we had made the country feel,” Hislop, now a commentator for the American sports network ESPN, said.