No new funds for Soca Warriors

TTFF special advisor Jack Austin Warner, following Tuesday’s press conference at the VIP Lounge, Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, said Cabinet "has given nothing, not even an advance."

Warner refused to concede that Government’s reluctance to help the team is due to his political allegiances.

But he noted: "I don’t want to make a budget that cannot stand up to scrutiny. So when I tell you we need $x million for (training) camps, I have figures and invoices and so on," he added. "When I say I need $y for travel, $x for insurance and this is what I’m putting down, anything else would be speculative. Then after that, (critics) hit me for six and so on."

Waxing political however, Warner stressed, "If it was a friendly Government, what they could have done is say ‘Listen, I want to get $5 million as advance and when the budget is finally (made up, ask for more).’ But you can’t do that of course in this day and age," he continued.

Warner also talked about the payments made to coach Leo Beenhakker and his assistants Whim Rijsbergen and Theo De Jong (now replaced by Anton Corneal) for their work with the TT team.

"Beenhakker and his assistants (were) promised an incentive if we did qualify. Of course, we had qualified and I have to keep my word, and it is substantial. And therefore that has to be honoured," he said.

As far as the TTFF finances are concerned Warner, who has funded the majority of the TT’s successful World Cup campaign thus far, said, "I’m just trying to find ways and means to be creative and innovative. Because, at the end of the day, what we have here is a kind of financial haemorrhage."

With regards to the promised payments of the 32 qualifying teams by FIFA, Warner emphasised that the respective federations will not get a share of the funds before September.

"You can’t get the money before," he declared. "You get money before you play?"

But he made it clear that the players would deservedly get a substantial amount while the remainder will go towards the TTFF’s development programme. However, Warner is not waiting until Government, and to a lesser extent the corporate sector, offer funding to the team.

"I’ll tell you this today, that with the same level of strength in my body that I used to get the team this far, I’ll use also to get them further," he asserted. "And they’ll not be found (wanting) because of a lack of funds whether they give or not. And I make no apologies for that.

"I’m not going to wait until Government comes last minute and give money," he added.

The FIFA vice-president said that the team’s preparation for the World Cup will take place regardless of the financial constraints of the TTFF.

"I have confidence in Mr Beenhakker in his training regimen and his programme," he noted. "If he could’ve gotten us this far, I close my eyes in terms of the level of competence of the training programme because he knows what he’s doing.

"Give him the resources that he wants because you’ll go there and embarrass yourself and your country," Warner added. "You get 10-1, so what? It can’t make sense."