Soca Warriors coach Stephen Hart is set for show down talks with T&T Football Association president, Raymond Tim Kee in the coming days over his future as plans for the senior men’s team 2018 Russia Fifa World Cup qualifying campaign gets going in November.
Contacted yesterday, Hart who guided T&T to a second straight Gold Cup quarterfinal appearance said, "I haven’t put pen to paper on a new deal, because we have a lot of things to put in place first and make sure that we have the proper programme in place as wee look towards the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
Earlier this month at a T&TFA media conference, Tim Kee boasted that Hart was set to stay on as coach of the T&T Soca Warriors team for a long time to come.
A former coach of the Canada national team, Hart signed a two-year deal to coach the Soca Warriors in 2013 and in his first tournament less than a month in charge he led the team to the quarterfinal stage of the Concacaf Gold Cup before losing 1-0 to eventual Mexico.
In his last tournament, the Gold Cup in July, he again guided the T&T team to the quarterfinal round before bowing out to Panama, on sudden-death penalty-kicks after a 1-1 draw.
Overall, as coach of the T&T team, Hart has a record of 12 wins, nine loses and four draws in 25 matches, a fair return for a man who’s time at helm has been overshadowed and hampered by a feud involving Minister of Sports and former national defender Brent Sancho and Tim Kee which sometimes left the San Fernando-born coach, the only full-time technical staff employee and the rest of his staff without salaries for months.
Back then when asked about Hart’s coaching status with the team, an upbeat Tim Kee said everything was being put in place for the out of contract coach to do so on his return home from Canada, but he did not want to speak much about it until Hart was present as a form of respect.