The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) is set for a $4.8 million (US$750,000) cash injection from FIFA after the international football body approved the unprecedented payment to its member associations at last week’s Congress in Sao Paulo. The payment is believed to be due in two tranches and can …
Read More »Omertà: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family (Part I)
“Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios…” John Prine, Sam Stone, 1971 As this book is completed, we wait to see if the FBI will indict leading members of Blatter’s FIFA Family. The investigations by an FBI Organised Crime Squad, based in Federal Plaza, New York, began in …
Read More »Jewel of Crown Trace: Chaguanas coach wins FIFA award for social work
On Wednesday, the ever-controversial Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner dominated the news again after word that CONCACAF had blocked the ex-FIFA vice-president leader from leasing, selling or mortgaging the João Havelange Centre of Excellence in Macoya. But Warner was not the only Chaguanas native to hear from FIFA on that …
Read More »Spain, Germany and Argentina are the not only ones aiming to conquer Brazil
This week, Wired868 looks on in awe as the big teams prepare their 2014 World Cup strategy. And we mean Adidas and Coca-Cola; not Argentina and Spain. Plus some Brazilian love for fat cats, FIFA’s plan to make the crippled walk as part of its pre-World Cup show and a …
Read More »Can Brazil deliver the World Cup stadia, much less the crown?
You know things are likely to be dicey when one of the host nation’s most famous players, Romario, tells FIFA to stick the World Cup where the sun doesn’t shine. And protesters are just one of a multitude of problems that the Brazil 2014 World Cup faces. Wired868 will keep …
Read More »UEFA’s farcical response to Yaya racism; and whither Webb and Blatter?
Shhhh! Did you hear that? That was the sound of football’s highly paid administrators sending a message out that racism would not be tolerated. And it was not emphatic enough to stir a sleeping baby. The UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body ordered today that CSKA Moscow must close one stand …
Read More »FIFA distances itself from TTFF liquidation threat
FIFA has distanced itself from the legal battle between the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) and 13 members of the 2006 World Cup squad and, in a letter dated 6 February 2013, instead advised the respective parties to seek out the relevant bodies for adjudication. The World Cup 2006 …
Read More »House that Jack built
This is the farmer sowing the corn / that kept the cock that crowed in the morn… Some people are born indispensable; other achieve indispensability and still others have indispensability thrust upon them. There is no way to know for certain, beyond any reasonable doubt even, which category Jack Austin …
Read More »FIFA withholds Warner pension
FIFA revealed yesterday that it is withholding the pension of its former Vice President and Trinidad and Tobago Works Minister Jack Warner. Warner resigned from FIFA last June in the wake of bribery allegations that saw fellow Vice President Mohamed Bin Hammam banned for life. However, the former TTFF special …
Read More »FIFA must overturn illegitimate TTFF
FIFA recently announced an extraordinary incursion into Caribbean football administration with the creation of a Normalisation Committee per Article 7 of the FIFA Statutes. While some would characterize, FIFA’s move as an overreach of its organizational powers, at best, or the introduction of European neocolonialism, at worst, I am of the opinion that FIFA …
Read More »Time for the ‘TTFF Spring’
Hutson “Barber” Charles, a former “Strike Squad” stand-out and Defence Force legend, was having a hard time curbing his enthusiasm on Sunday night. Shaun Fuentes, the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) press officer, did his best to help. The national football team had just lost 3-2 to the visiting …
Read More »