Several questions were still to be answered as to who was to blame as Raymond Tim Kee, president of the T&T Football Association (T&TFA) tried to explain the plight of the Soca Princesses as they prepare for Concacaf Women’s World Cup qualification in the USA beginning next week.
Yesterday, American-born T&T coach Randy Waldrum issued an apology to the TTFA over the language he used on Twitter to appeal for help for his charges who arrived in Dallas on Tuesday with just US $500 to look after their needs.
Waldrum tweeted: “I need HELP. T&T sent a team here last night with US$500 total. No equipment such as balls, no transportation from airport to hotel, nothing. I don’t know how I’m going to feed these players starting at lunch today. If you know of anyone in Dallas area that will help with food, etc.
“Please let me know asap!.. And I’m suppose to qualify this team for a World Cup. I have to help these players somehow. they deserve better.”
Yesterday Waldrum admitted his language could have been better and issued an apology.
Speaking at a hastily arranged press conference yesterday, Tim Kee stayed clear of pointing fingers at his executive or member of the team’s technical staff but noted that no amount of excuses, explanations could erase what happened on Wednesday.
Tim Kee said it was a mad scramble for funds for the team.
“We had prior knowledge that it would cost the team US $200 to cover the cost of transportation from the airport to the hotel where we would be based and the remaining US $300 was expected to cover other expenses for the rest of the day.
I believe one major oversight was that we should have been in communication with the coach who had gone ahead of the team to ensure everything was in place, that is just unpardonable,” admitted Tim Kee
He added, “When the coach heard that only $US300 was left, he took to social media to express his frustrations.”
Tim Kee noted Waldrum had discussions with T&TFA general secretary Sheldon Phillips as well as other members of the technical staff and was in agreement with what was planned based on what was available to him.
He added, “We even had discussions with the captain and she was comfortable along with other members of the staff as we wanted to get their feel on the matter, and they all endorsed it.”
The Soca Princesses are preparing for their opening Concacaf Women’s Final Round Fifa World Cup 2015 qualifiers against host USA next Wednesday at Sporting Park, Kansas City from 8.30pm.
In addition to USA, the Soca Princesses will also face Haiti on Friday October 17 at Toyota Park, Bridgeview, Illinois from 6.30pm and Guatemala two days later to end round-robin play at Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium, Washington DC while Jamaica, runners-up to T&T in the CFU women’s competition competes in the other group with Costa Rica, Jamaica and Mexico.
At the end of the round-robin phase, the top two teams in each group will qualify to the semifinals from where the winners will not only reach the final, but earn two of the three automatic Concacaf places at next year’s World Cup in Canada from June 6-July 5.
The losers of the semifinals will battle for the third automatic spot while the fourth-place team enters a playoff with the third placed South America team for another spot via a home-and-away series.
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Dallas World Cup situation unacceptable.
T&T Guardian Reports.
I saw tweets on Wednesday from coach Randy Waldrum reaching out to the public for financial support for the women’s national team which had arrived in Dallas for their World Cup qualifier games. The tweet posted by the coach himself stated that the team was sent to this tournament with only US $500.
There was no equipment available to the team and no transport from the airport to the hotel arranged. According to the tweets, Waldrum did not know how he was even going to feed the ladies’ squad from that very same afternoon.
He was gracious enough to credit the TTFA as having “helped all they can,” pointing out in one of his tweets that more money and staff would be provided the following day but I could not help but wonder a few things: First, who is accountable for such poor planning and preparation to ensure that once the girls arrived, the only thing that needed to occupy their mind was performing well.
The other thing that ran through my head is, exactly what thoughts, actions and phone calls must have transpired before turning to a public forum, like Twitter, to beg anyone around the world to support a national team from a country that supposedly possesses a thriving economy.
I would imagine that posting such a state of affairs concerning a national team on a forum like Twitter, would have been met with a measure of embarrassment by the relevant parties, or maybe this is what I would like to believe. You read the follow-up comments on different sites and there are those who said that stuff like this happens all over the world.
I think, even if that is true, does that make it an acceptable standard for us? Are election campaigns not centred on promising the good citizens of this great nation that framework would be in place to elevate the current standards in the local sporting environment.
One person posted a comment wondering whether Waldrum’s twitter account had been hacked into. The coach replied confirming that the posting was legit and later followed with a means by which donations can be made to the team, accessible by anyone from anywhere. What depths had this coach reached to have to resort to this measure?
In my last column I presented the question whether anyone really cares about sport in this country. Do the Federations really care?
Earlier this year another national team was in this scenario, where athletes had arrived for a tournament and things were not in place. Here it is again, happening a second time within the same year. Where is the problem?
These are the young men and women of this country that we are supposed to be taking care of and not out of charity—no! These are athletes who are in a foreign country representing T&T. Is this the best that this system is able to offer?
There comes a point when certain things are unacceptable and the arrival of a team in a foreign country for a tournament with not even meals arranged to feed them properly is one of them. If these are the conditions being afforded to these athletes, exactly what were the expectations of their performances?
It could not have been anything spectacular. If this is the case, then why bother pumping resources into it at all? To make it appear like you care about sport? To make it appear like we are a progressive nation?
Athletes have gritted their teeth forever in T&T; they do not tweet what they know they should. They do not embarrass their Federation, their country—maybe it is because if they do, chances are they will not see another national team or maybe it is because they do not want to believe what is happening.
What Waldrum did to get the funding for the team was a brave thing. I have known team managers who have quicker used their own credit card to fund teams, having been put in similar situations. This time, for whatever reason, that was not an option and now questions must be asked. What is going on? Does anyone really care about sport in T&T?
Asha De Freitas-Moseley is a certified athletic trainer with the National Athletic Trainers’ Association of the USA. She has 12 years of experience rehabilitating athletes and members of the active population from injury to full play. She can be reached at Pulse Performance Ltd, located at #17 Henry Pierre St, St James. Tel: 221-2437.