Biographies, autobiographies and memoirs about Caribbean people unwittingly carry the burden of history. So much has gone unrecorded, and academic histories tend to produce images of the broader landscape: sweeping statements about major events of an epoch. As useful as that is, it often glosses over the minutiae that add …
Read More »Dear Editor: St Benedict’s training ground shames its football teams and Dom Basil’s legacy
As we enter the new year, let me extend already mountainous congratulations to the St Benedict’s College senior and under-14 football teams. Theirs was an outstanding season. As a past student not that many moons ago, it is beyond heart-warming to see the fruits of the rebuilding of a once mighty and …
Read More »Browne: Hadad must name mystery TTFA “financier”; NC, Trustee accused of misleading members
Veteran Footballers Foundation president Selby Browne has accused the Robert Hadad-led Normalisation Committee and its trustee, Maria Daniel, of misleading members of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA). And further, in a letter penned on Christmas Eve to acting TTFA general secretary Amiel Mohammed, Browne has now “demanded” that …
Read More »Berry: Hadad’s unsuitability is T&T football’s biggest problem, not identity of next TTFA president
“[…] Robert Hadad has spent more than two and a half years plodding along whilst receiving a nice monthly sum from Fifa, for achieving what? “[…] By March 2023, he will have personally been paid about US$220,000 (TT$1.49m) and you can more than double that for his cronies—while creditors have …
Read More »Dear Editor: Now TTFA’s members know who they climbed in bed with, after accepting “normalisation”
“[…] It is sadly laughable that those who now demand democratic elections on 18 March have never demanded that Fifa or its Normalisation Committee respect TTFA democracy. “[…] They never engaged the broad membership in any discussion regarding a way forward for Trini football. Their ‘governance model’ doesn’t allow for …
Read More »Cooper hails attitude of National U-17s as squad whittled down, still no friendlies announced
Trinidad and Tobago Men’s National Under-17 Team head coach Shawn Cooper has credited the work ethic and competitiveness of his pool of players, as they come to the end of a residential training camp at the TTFA Home of Football in Couva. The young Soca Warriors are preparing for next …
Read More »“Neo-colonialism”, “diabolical”, “justifiable”; TTFA creditors speak out as Hadad tries to hold off football membership
Somewhere between 2006 and 2010, as Trinidad and Tobago’s football stock fell on and off the field—and, as always, the decline in one was linked to happenings in the other—a group of influential members allegedly decided that change was necessary. Then Fifa vice-president and Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) …
Read More »Sobers, Hinds and Kwinsi among six T&T referees on Fifa’s international list
Trinidad and Tobago will have six referees on Fifa’s international list of officials for 2023, after the Fifa Referees Committee accepted recommendations from the TTFA’s Referees Department. Crystal Sobers, Cecile Hinds and Kwinsi Williams were all accepted on Fifa’s referees list while Caleb Wales, Ainsley Rochard and Evelyn Douglas-Jacob got …
Read More »CWI gives Academy coach, Coley, interim WI post for Zimbabwe, S/Africa tours
The Cricket West Indies (CWI) today appointed CWI Academy head coach Andre Coley as interim head coach of the West Indies men’s team for next year’s trips to Zimbabwe and South Africa. Coley, who assisted outgoing coach Phil Simmons during the 2016 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, spent much of …
Read More »Orin: Sports, politics and bandwagons; the 2022 W/Cup was pregnant with resonance
“[…] North versus south, developed versus developing, small versus big, rich versus poor, colonists versus colonised. Matches were pregnant with meaning and resonance outside of football. “[…] The World Cup, Olympics and sports in general are proxies for fights over politics, history and geographical hegemony… Caribbean people in the UK …
Read More »Qatar 2022: Hart on Mbappé vs Messi and the tactical options open to France and Argentina
“[…] Kylian Mbappé has shown that he can beat almost every player for pace, but to say that is all he possesses would be an insult. He has shown he is not only able to elude his opponent on the inside and outside, but in tight spaces—as he demonstrated against Morocco—where his …
Read More »Vaneisa: Growing a beautiful game—the communal role of grassroots sport
Barbecues, cake stalls, car washes—common fund-raising strategies of communities and individuals trying to attain some goal. They don’t raise much, but it is an example of the way people can come together to do things for themselves. I am coming back to a subject I raised a couple weeks ago …
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