T&T Women footballers beg for food, water for US training camp

The TT Football Association (TTFA), under the presidency of David John-Williams, is yet to appoint a coach for the national team, ahead of the CONCACAF Women's Championship, which will take place in the United States from October 4-17.

Eight teams will compete at the CONCACAF Women's Championship for three automatic spots at next year's World Cup.

The Canadian-born King, on her Facebook page, posted earlier today, "21 days away from our final stage of World Cup Qualifiers!! NO CAMP & NO OFFICIAL COACH! This is madness. Help us make a change for Women’s Football and to inspire Trinidad and Tobago! #ISTANDWITHTTWSW We are simply asking for support. #RoadToFrance2019 #EQUALITY"

Hutchinson has called for interested persons to support a proposed training camp in Richmond, Virginia where she lives, in terms of accommodation for the T&T players, meals and/or training gear.

"We wanna bring the team to Richmond, we wanna create our own camp. If you have any resources that you can donate to us, please, please, please reach out to me," Hutchinson said.

Ironically, the national team suffered similar struggles during their campaign for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada. In 2014, former coach Randy Waldrum posted a tweet outlining the lack of support the team received ahead of the CONCACAF Championship. Impoverished Haiti had pledged a donation then to assist their Caribbean neighbours.

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Women footballers begging for help.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

Dis­re­spect­ed is how some play­ers of the T&T Women's team feel about the treat­ment met­ed out to them on the verge of the Oc­to­ber 4-17 Con­ca­caf Women's Cham­pi­onship which will be a qual­i­fi­er for the FI­FA Women's World Cup in France next year.

The team does not have a coach af­ter the con­tract of care-tak­er coach An­ton Corneal ex­pired at the end of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Qual­i­fiers in Kingston Ja­maica last month. And al­though Shawn Coop­er, who was Corneal's as­sis­tant at the CFU qual­i­fiers, was giv­en the nod for the coach­ing job, doubt sur­round­ed his se­lec­tion af­ter Kei­th Look Loy, a mem­ber of the Board of Di­rec­tors of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, has vowed to chal­lenge the va­lid­i­ty of the ap­point­ment, say­ing the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) that the TTFA claimed to have se­lect­ed Tech­ni­cal Com­mit­tee Chair­man Richard Quan Chan on June 30 this year, did not have a quo­rum.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day, two play­ers, goal­keep­er Saun­dra Baron and de­fend­er Arin King took to so­cial me­dia to high­light their con­cerns, say­ing their prob­lems stem from lack or no sup­port from the par­ent foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion. Baron, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T dur­ing a CFU Women's Chal­lenge ear­li­er this year at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va, said, " I made an app and the hash­tag says I stand with T&T Women's So­ca War­riors. I made the graph­ic be­cause we are be­ing dis­re­spect­ed. We can't go on like this, they're treat­ing us like we're noth­ing."

King on the oth­er-hand called on any­one wish­ing to pro­vide help for the team's prepa­ra­tion. "Right now my team­mates and I are strug­gling to put to­geth­er the re­sources we need to qual­i­fy for a World Cup. Four years ago it was the same sto­ry, the same nar­ra­tive but it's even worse this time. We do not have a ton of re­sources and a lot of it comes from our as­so­ci­a­tion, but this is where you come in."

She added, "Right now, to­day, we do not have an of­fi­cial train­ing camp ahead of Con­ca­caf. We want to bring the team to Rich­mond, we want to cre­ate our own camp. If you have any re­sources that you can do­nate to us please reach out to me. If you want to host a play­er at your home for a few days if you have ex­tra wa­ter if you have got snacks or ba­nanas or any­thing that you can do­nate if you can buy a t-shirt so I can get my team­mates here."

King said her so­cial me­dia ac­count is usu­al­ly to in­spir­ing oth­ers and high­light pos­i­tiv­i­ty, but at this point, she re­al­ly need­ed the help of the pub­lic. "Trans­porta­tion, sup­port, field time, train­ing, strength and con­di­tion­ing, any­thing you are will­ing to do­nate, please help us. Let's get the team to Rich­mond as­ap be­cause right now we have no sup­port, we have not coached. Sup­port­ing us is not on­ly gonna help me. It's gonna in­spire all the lit­tle girls in Rich­mond and around the Unit­ed States that fol­low the sport, and it's go­ing to in­spire an en­tire na­tion, the na­tion of T&T."

The T&T team has been drawn in group 'A' of Women's Cham­pi­onship, along­side USA, Pana­ma and Mex­i­co. T&T opens its cam­paign against the Pana­ma­ni­ans on Oc­to­ber 4, be­fore fac­ing Mex­i­co and the Unit­ed States on Oc­to­ber 7 and 10 re­spec­tive­ly.