Warriors regroup for World Cup visit

Jack Austin Warner, Special Advisor to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF), said yesterday that all the players involved in the World Cup campaign is expected to be here for the Coca-Cola-sponsored FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, Macoya, Tunapuna.

At the launch of the event, at the VIP Lounge, Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, Warner noted that the players were advised last weekend that they would be brought back home, all expenses paid, for the day’s proceedings.

Warner, TTFF secretary Richard Groden and manager Bruce Aanensen, met with 15-overseas based players at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, London, England and he noted that the players were all keen on returning home for the event.

"So you’ll have the chance to see the team for the first time, as a team, after Bahrain (on November 16)," Warner said. "And all of this is of no cost to the Government or the (sponsors)."

"We have done this because we feel it is right, we feel it is the correct thing to do to support the whole programme," the FIFA vice-president said.

Warner was full in praise of the players for their level of maturity displayed in the meeting.

"We had gone there, thinking and believing, that we would have had to quell some riots, some disturbance," Warner admitted.

"I have never met players so cohesive, so mature and who were committed and said, ‘Listen, let’s put this money thing behind us and spend some time on our game,’"," he said. "Not a single player asked anything about tickets except to say if their parents could be facilitated to see them play. And I told them, ‘Yes’."

However, in typical Warner style, he was in a fiery mood against the Government, in particular Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s plan to send a cultural troupe to Germany.

"I want to say, publicly, that when this country qualified for Germany 2006, the smallest country to qualify for the World Cup, with the biggest passion, when we qualified, I felt a sense of joy, a sense of pride," he said.

"And, in some ways today, I feel a sense of pain, a sense of grief because of the kind of embarrassment which I have to face, both outside the country and inside the country.

"How do I explain to the other 31 (qualifiers) that we behave still as if we’re going to see a match at the Hasely Crawford Stadium?" he asked. "And when we talk about a cultural troupe in Germany, that has to be shameful."

He also took a jab at the media, he opined.

"When men in the media behave as if they want to go and carry a match and say, ‘I want a pass, I want verification’".... to do what? "You cannot go to the stadiums with a TV camera, you can’t," he stressed.

"And they behave as if it’s no big thing because they know Jack Warner, or they know of Jack Warner or that somebody in Germany would be able to help them."We became the laughing stock and people are asking me if I don’t know better." But Warner revealed that BBC have been granted permission to do live broadcasts of the Trophy Tour here in Trinidad.

Warner also asked the Coca-Cola company to assist in his recently-organised Soca Warriors Gun Amnesty Plan.

Concerning the Trophy Tour on February 17, the FIFA vice-president noted that plans are in place to get Tobagonians to come to Trinidad for the event. And, with regards to the security arrangements on the day, Warner revealed that the team’s security officer, Brigadier John Sandy, has organised a state-of-the-art security system which will be instituted on the day.