Big German welcome for TT

TT Football Federation President Oliver Camps and General Secretary Richard Groden led the visiting party and Warner, in Germany since earlier in the week for other FIFA meetings, was at the Renaissance Hotel to greet his countrymen.

Other members of the delegation arriving here so far are team manager Bruce Aanansen, press officer Shaun Fuentes, team assistant manager George Joseph, cultural liaison officer Terry Joseph, security officer Roy Augustus, Tracy Davidson of the Tourism Development Company. Dr James Hepple, also of the Tourism Company is expected to arrive in time for tomorrow’s grand draw.

Upon check-in at the hotel, the delegation also received welcome letters from Bernd Listner, honorary consul of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in Germany.

"We share your happiness that Trinidad and Tobago has qualified for the World Championship in Germany and are excited at which places the team trained by Mr Leo Beenhakker will play," Listner stated.

Already, there has been a huge fanfare over TT’s participation with several television crews requesting permission to follow the TT delegation around and putting forward proposals to follow the Soca Warriors in their build-up to the Finals.

Sky Sports is particularly interested in spending the next few days with the TT delegation, following the site visits among other activities as well as producing a documentary on the Soca Warriors.

"So far everything has indicated that this is World Cup level," Camps told TTFF Media. "I think while we are here representing the country, everyone must be proud of the fact that we are on display worldwide and I have every bit of confidence that we will take all the benefits from something like this," added Camps who was a guest for the 1998 Draw in France. He twice came close in 1974 and 1990 when he was manager of the Trinidad and Tobago team.

While Camps and the delegation are in Liepzig representing the country, Warner, without a doubt, even in his capacity as FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF president, is the proudest individual in the city with regards to TT’s qualification.

He has duly been the centre of attraction so far. For the draw tomorrow TT are in Pot 4 with Iran, Japan, Korea Republic, Saudi Arabia , Costa Rica and the USA.

The FIFA World Cup regulations stipulate that geographical criteria must also be taken into account in the draw. Each group may not include more than one team per confederation, with the exception of Europe, which has 14 representatives.

Consequently, six of the eight groups will comprise two European teams.

Serbia and Montenegro were allocated to a special pot to avoid drawing three European teams into one group.

The reason for the decision allocating one of the nine remaining European representatives into this bowl was the FIFA/Coca-Cola ranking in November 2005, in which Serbia and Montenegro occupied 47th place — the lowest position of the teams in question.

TT head coach Leo Beenhakker arrives today on a private jet out of Holland with other Dutch World Cup coaches Guus Hiddink (Australia), Dick Advocaat (South Korea) and Marco Van Basten (Netherlands).

Today FIFA President Sepp Blatter will open the information stands in the city. These stands will deal specifically with accommodation, transportation, ticketing, marketing and venues. mThere will also be a marketing workshop which the TTFF is expected to be involved in and the second part of the FIFA executive committee meeting will take place at the Messe Leipzig Hotel.

The day’s activities will close with a FIFA banquet in Glashalle, Leipzig.