PLAYERS, coaches and staff members of the T&T Football Association (TTFA) have been paid, Robert Hadad, the chairman of the FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee has confirmed, thereby delivering on his promise to pay salaries before Christmas Day.
Hadad said on Monday that they were all paid. The coaches – some are on contract others on agreement, some of which have expired – have not received salaries since taking up national duty in January when the technical committee which was headed by Keith Look Loy, appointed a cadre of coaches inclusive of senior team coach Terry Fenwick, Derek King (Men’s Under-20 Team), Angus Eve (Men’s Under-17 Team), Keith Jeffrey (Men’s Under-15 Team), Richard Hood (Women’s Under-20 and Under-17 Teams) and Jason Spence (Women’s Under-15 Team).
Hadad told Guardian Media Sports: “Players were paid today (Monday), coaches were paid today and admin staff was paid today. Players were paid off 100 per cent, the coaches we paid many of them half of what we owed them up until August because we could only pay what we have, and admin staff was paid up until the end of November.”

The local football boss said they can only pay what they have available to them.
With the payment to date, the staff will now be owed salaries for this month (December) alone, while many of the coaches were paid off in full, in particular, the ones with the smaller teams. The coaches at the senior teams, however, received half payment up until the end of August.
Hadad promised they will look into the balance of moneys available to them and make a determination of what can be paid to them during the early part of January.
Hadad dismissed claims that his normalisation committee has been doing nothing, saying: “We working and we drowning in a flurry of stuff.”
Hadad and his normalisation committee, which consists of former banker Nigel Romano and attorney Judy Daniel, the deputy chairman, have had to sift through piles of claims by various contractors all claiming to be owed by the embattled football association.
It also has to deal with a plethora of contracts that did not receive approval from the Board of Directors of the TTFA.

Ironically, Hadad’s appointment at the helm of an organisation with a mandate to stabilise local football, came after a combined team from FIFA and CONCACAF visited T&T in February and found the sport on the verge of insolvency, due mainly to rising debt and no means of clearing them.
Meanwhile, a debt of close to an estimated TT$80M, which has crippled local football, may soon be found and paid. Hadad said his committee had a close-to-a-three-hour meeting yesterday, discussing all the options available to them to clear the debt.”We are looking at how are we raising the money, because of course, if I start to go negotiating the debt without knowing what I have available, how can you negotiate?. The right way to do it is to know where the money is coming from. Once I know where the money is coming from, then I can sit with people and give them a final settlement figure.”
The normalisation committee is currently in the process of getting football back up and running, Hadad noted that the aim is to try and get the government to relax the COVID-19 protocols for the Pro League and the Super League, as well as to get Women football back on track since FIFA gave them money for it (women football).