Overbearing! T&T footballers refuse Nations League call-ups, due to unpaid TTFA fees and disrespect

Do any Trinidad and Tobago Men’s National Senior Team footballers still believe in the verbal assurances of Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) president Kieron Edwards?

With formal invitations due to be issued from Monday 7 September for players to represent the Soca Warriors in the upcoming 2026/27 Concacaf Nations League A match window, Wired868 was reliably informed that manager Richard Piper is scrambling to assemble a team—after a financial ultimatum from captain Levi Garcia, on behalf of the squad.

There are current Men’s National Senior Team players who are owed match fees that date as far back as June 2024, while nobody has been paid for any of the team’s six friendly matches in 2026.

However, the Men’s National Senior Team players are asking for a mere fraction of that money—as a gesture of goodwill.

“I don’t believe they can pay off what is being owed [to the players] for the last two years,” Garcia told Wired868. “But we want to be paid at least 75 percent of what we were due from the last World Cup qualifying campaign.

“There was a poll and 90 percent of the players voted for this. If we are not paid, we are not coming.”

Trinidad and Tobago face Haiti in Kingston, Jamaica for their opening 2026-27 CNL fixture on Thursday 24 September, before hosting the Dominican Republic at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Sunday 27 September.

Normally, international teams play twice in a Fifa international match window. This time, it is different.

The Warriors will remain in camp, as they travel to Willemstad to face Curaçao on Thursday 1 October and then host the Dutch islanders at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Sunday 4 October.

Four games to determine whether Trinidad and Tobago advance to the CNL quarterfinal round, retain their spot in League A, or are demoted to League B.

As it stands, head coach Derek King would be unsure of whether he can rely on much outside of the Defence Force player pool. (Soldiers are not allowed to refuse national duty.)

Wired868 sent Edwards several questions related to the players’ grievances, which extend to the football president’s alleged failure to attend meetings or return their phone calls:

• Why hasn’t the TTA paid its players for the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign, or met its players’ deadlines to pay 75 percent of fees owed from that campaign?

• What is your response to complaints about your communication style, which mirrors issues raised previously by former head coach Dwight Yorke? Can you say if you plan to remedy this, and how?
• Do you think, as president, your inability to address the concerns of players is an unnecessary burden on the shoulders of your head coach?

Edwards did not respond to any of Wired868’s questions up until the time of publication.

In the 2026 World Cup qualifying series, the Trinidad and Tobago players routinely played in front of packed stadia (with gate receipts expected, conservatively, to be in excess of TT$3 million per game).

There was also TT$6.79 million from SporTT, another TT$3 million from NGC, plus undisclosed television rights fee (expected to be comfortably over TT$7 million), and whatever money from the TTFA’s Fifa Forward Programme (between TT$10 and $30 million) allotment is put towards that objective.

The TTFA, then, is likely to have received over TT$16 million exclusively for its World Cup qualifying campaign, in addition to money received from the government to cover the salaries of the coaching staff, along with other smaller sponsorship deals.

From that money, the Edwards-led football body should have kept TT$3 million to pay match fees, with another TT$1 million for potential bonuses. (Warriors were due US$3,000 per match in the World Cup qualifying campaign, with a US$1,000 bonus for wins or US$500 for draws.

Can Team Progressive, Edwards’ executive group, justify not ensuring its players were paid?

“I don’t know where the money goes,” said Garcia, “but it never seems to go towards the players, who are the ones on the pitch making the sacrifice.”

On Wednesday 12 August, Garcia and team vice-captains Andre Rampersad and Kobi Henry spelt out their issues in a letter to Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Phillip Watts:

‘On behalf of the players of the Men’s Senior National Football Team, we would like to bring to your attention the overbearing issues that we have been subjected to under President Edwards and this current Football Association’s Executive.

‘Promises are regularly broken, efforts to communicate via voice calls, WhatsApp messages and emails go unanswered and his non-attendance to scheduled meetings has us all feeling very disrespected and as being not important.

‘The most troubling issue we face is the outstanding match fees owed. While in the minority, we have players owed fees dating back since June 2024, the large majority of us are owed fees for games played in 2025 onward.

‘While some of us earn our livings outside of the country about half of us are based locally, and given the fact that the professional league in Trinidad concluded in April 2026 and [TTPFL officials] unfortunately cannot confirm the start date of their 2026/2027 season, many of our locally based players are struggling to make ends meet for themselves, [and] their families and are counting on these outstanding match fees.

‘These issues identified above has caused us to give President Edwards and by extension the FA’s Executive an ultimatum that we expect to have at least seventy-five percent (75%) of all our outstanding match fees paid by this coming Friday 15th August 2026, or else we will not make ourselves available for the upcoming September and October Match Window, during which the Concacaf Nations League will take place.’

Watts did not respond to the players. He said their woes will be among the issues addressed by a new sport committee, which, once activated, should include former World Cup star Shaka Hislop and ex-TTFA technical director Anton Corneal.

“I didn’t respond to the players because I’m setting up a committee to deal with what we do for football,” Watts told Wired868. “[…] We have to be very careful in how we deal with that, because those footballers fall under the TTFA, which in turn falls under Fifa.

“But the first task I will give them (the MSYA sport committee) would be to advise on that… I prefer to have the committee deal with that and then advise.

“They (the TTFA) are a NGB (non-governmental body). As a minister, I should not be intervening in NGB business… At the same time, we are trying to sit with our NGBs to see how we address these things and avoid things like this from happening in the future.”

For now, Watts offers only empathy to the Soca Warriors.

“I was very surprised to know this is what they were going through and I am very, very disappointed to know this is what our footballers are going through,” said Watts. “As minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, I am quite satisfied that we gave them (the TTFA) enough assistance for the Men’s World Cup qualifiers.

“Whatever they asked for from the previous government, they got. And when the government changed, they came again and asked for more money—and they got everything they asked for.”

Garcia, who recently moved from Russia club Spartak Moscow to top Greece outfit Panathinaikos, sounded like a man nearing the end of his rope.

A Secondary Schools Football (SSFL) standout at Shiva Boys’ Hindu College, Garcia became Trinidad and Tobago’s youngest ever player and scorer in a top flight European league, when, at 18 years old, he scored for AZ Alkmaar on 30 January 2016.

Two months later, Garcia scored a double on his senior international debut to help Trinidad and Tobago come from behind to edge Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 3-2 in a 2018 World Cup qualifier at Arnos Vale.

Ten years on, Garcia is still playing at the highest level—and arguably has been the country’s marquee player for at least half of that decade. But it has not been an easy road.

“I am tired,” said Garcia. “I am criticised a lot, which I accept. But I make a lot of sacrifices to play for my country… It is not about the money for me.

“People may not know that I have been paying for my own flights for the last six to seven years to represent Trinidad and Tobago. I don’t think the money I earned from Trinidad and Tobago [through match fees] is even a quarter of what I have spent to represent my country.”

Garcia said he started booking his own flights with accompanying lay-over hotel stops since his stint with Israeli top flight club Ironi Kiryat Shmona in 2018.

“They (the TTFA) would send you a plane ticket and you have about five stops to get home […] which seemed to be taking you around the world to get to Trinidad,” said Garcia, “when I can also see that there is another flight that will get me home in one or two stops.

“So, I sent the other route to them and explained that this is the better option and they said it is too expensive. So I said, okay I would pay for the upgrade and buy the ticket.”

So, Garcia paid for his own flight home, with the expectation that he would be reimbursed up to the figure that the TTFA was initially willing to spend. However, he never received that money.

“[…] Then they start sending you flights that are so bad [in terms of stops] that you wonder if they are doing it on purpose,” he said. “So I’m constantly changing the flights. And eventually I just gave up and started to book my own flights home [to play for Trinidad and Tobago].”

It is one of many examples, he said, of the difference between representing your club and country.

“As players, we are asked to accept the bare minimum all the time while people are expecting you to perform at the highest level,” said Garcia. “You’re coming from a place where you understand the science of football, in terms of things like your recovery.

“But when you’re playing for Trinidad and Tobago, the only science to speed up recovery is just: breathe in, breathe out.”

Sometimes, Garcia had to pay expenses for even technical staff members on national duty.

“I want the environment around me to be as healthy as possible,” he said. “It feels sometimes like you’re leaving a happy environment with your club and you come to the national team and it’s just constant headaches… just issue after issue.”

Garcia said he hoped things would change under Edwards, after a promising meeting when he was first elected president.

“I don’t think I am someone who gets chained up easily—but I got excited,” he said. “They said they were going to change football for the better, and based on those conversations I was really looking forward to what I felt was about to come.

“The reason I was always investing so much money over the years into representing Trinidad and Tobago is because I was waiting for the moment like this, when things were going to change. But instead, things got worse.”

Edwards’ alleged communication style is a big issue.

“You make an appointment, […] he doesn’t show—then he’s going to send you a message two days later saying: ‘boy, I got caught up in a meeting’,” said Garcia. “I swear there is nobody in Trinidad who attends meetings like him.

“[…] I could never understand why you could be treating people like he does. How can you have five big men plus your head coach on a Zoom call waiting for you, and you don’t come?

“[…] Then a couple days later, he (Edwards) was supposed to attend a staff meeting in Couva. And you have big men waiting and didn’t show up to that in-person meeting either.

“I don’t understand that level of disrespect… He has made so many appointments and then didn’t show up for them.”

Garcia noted that on the eve of Trinidad and Tobago’s first World Cup qualifier of the semifinal round, against Curaçao, the players were up late discussing match fees with the TTFA president.

“At the end of the day, football is about the mental side,” he said. “When you are doing so much of work off the field, it affects you on the field… Come game day, you’re drained.”

For years, Garcia said he tried to support successive TTFA presidents and motivate players to do their best on the field, despite the issues. But he thinks the time has come to take a stance.

As the players dug their heels in last month, Edwards made a payment. Instead of fulfilling the request for 75 percent of outstanding 2026 World Cup qualifying match fees to all players, the local football body, based on checks by the Warriors, paid 50 percent to roughly 23 players.

About two dozen players were short-changed, while another dozen got nothing at all.

The feeling within the camp is that the TTFA was trying to divide the players, and only pay those who were needed for the next match window. Garcia spoke to the senior players who, he said, rejected that offer.

“I said we can’t accept this,” he said, “because you can’t say you are paying the 23-man squad alone. So if one of us are not in the next squad, you won’t pay us our money as well?”

Garcia said Edwards promised to discuss their stance further. Instead, though, players told their captain that they were being called separately by TTFA officials and asked to play.

Former captain Kevin Molino also reached out to a few players, although he told Wired868 that he was trying to understand their position and offer advice—rather than talk them into playing on Edwards’ behalf.

“I know […] they will call more vulnerable players behind my back and try to put together a team, and then they will try to paint it like I am the problem,” said Garcia.

“[…] I don’t know why ex-senior players didn’t speak up before. I don’t know if they were afraid of the public backlash or whatever—but I think this has been going on for too long.

“If they decide to be finished with me, then so be it. But I can’t be going through this over and over.”

Rampersad and Henry apart, national standouts like Denzil Smith, Tyrese Spicer, Rio Cardines, and Jerrin Jackie are among the players who voted along with Garcia, due to the non-payment of fees.

For some players, this issue is about being respected by the TTFA. For others, the outstanding income from the local football body could make an immediate impact on the current quality of their lives.

Garcia stressed that all the players love representing their country and have nothing but respect for local football supporters, and the game itself.

“What football has given to me and my family, only God alone knows,” said the national captain. “This is such a beautiful game. But I cannot see this continue because some people are greedy and only studying their pockets.

“Without the players, there is no football, and then there is no money for anyone to make through football.

“[…] I have always tried to live my life doing the right thing, and I believe it is the right thing and the right time.”

Editor’s Note: Wired868 will publish a wide-ranging, full-length interview with Levi Garcia tomorrow, which pulls back the curtain on what it is like to represent the Trinidad and Tobago national football team.

Wired868 has provided readers with solid, independent journalism since 2012. If you appreciate our work, please contribute to our efforts. Support Independent Journalism