HexagonalBlog

T&T federation assets seized

The long, long, long dispute between a group of players from Trinidad & Tobago's 2006 World Cup squad and their national football federation reached a new but not yet final phase today when many of the physical assets of the federation were seized by order of the Trinidadian High Court.  (The original article is located here.) Court-appointed personnel confiscated assets that were removable and thought to be valuable, such as furniture, match memorabilia and trophies, uniforms, computers, and appliances. 

Crates containing unsold copies of Jack Warner's autobiography were left behind.

The seized assets will be auctioned off, but the chances that the proceeds will cancel out the US$700,000 still owed to the players are very small.  The next course of action for the players would then be to liquidate the remaining assets of the T&TFF, which would include their building and other land holdings, and then go after the principals themselves such as former T&TFF president Oliver Camps. 

Of course no further discussion of this saga can proceed without mentioning Jack Warner.  In hindsight, his appointment as a Special Advisor to the T&T Football Federation was a clever move.  The players would like to add him as a party to the case, but it not certain that a judge will grant such a motion.  The federation in a statement today recognizes that there is a debt owed to the players but they are unable to pay it, and besides, Jack Warner was the person in charge of those World Cup accounts.

So the focus in this case will shift to Warner.  Will he be made a party to the proceedings by the courts?  Will he reveal what happened to the money from T&T's World Cup campaign?  The answer to the first question will determine if the second question will ever be resolved.

Jack Warner is officially out of friends

The news from a few days ago that FIFA have torn up the World Cup TV contract with the Caribbean Football Union is the clearest indication that former CONCACAF president Jack Warner has run out of friends at the world governing body. FIFA's explanation for the decision was that they were made aware that the rights deal was sublicensed by one of Warner's companies, JD International, and therefore posed a conflict of interest.  But how could they not have known?  When JDI sold on the rights to Jamaican sports broadcasting company SportsMax for US$15-20m -- a riskless profit if there ever was one -- Warner was present at the negotiations and SportsMax thanked him publicly!  Either FIFA's investigative powers are faulty or they chose to avert their eyes several years ago, and neither explanation is flattering.

Jack Warner has fired back at FIFA through the Caribbean press, accusing them of ruining the lives of footballers and administrators across the Caribbean.  The Trinidadian footballers who have had to wait five years for their 2006 World Cup bonuses were not available for comment.

Bahamas withdraws from 2014 World Cup qualifying!

Shocking news coming out of the Caribbean this afternoon.  News outlets in Panama are saying that the Bahamas FA have announced that they have withdrawn from the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying tournament.  The announcement came in the form of a memorandum sent by FIFA's head of Qualifying Competitions to the Panamanian FA.  No official confirmation has been made by FIFA at this writing, but if you look at the fixture list for the next three months, no matches involving the Bahamas are listed. 

The withdrawal means that Group C now becomes a three-team group, composed of Panama, Dominica, and Nicaragua.  Only six matches are needed to play the double round-robin, so we will see one group match on the six international matchdays between September and November.

I have to wonder if there are other CONCACAF minnows who are giving a hard look at their capabilities of carrying out a six-match qualifying program.  If so, I fear that the Bahamas may not be the only withdrawal from the CONCACAF qualifiers.

UPDATE: About two hours ago there was a news release from CONCACAF that communicated Bahamas' withdrawal from the competition, but now I cannot find any mention of it on their website.  It's hard to find anything on CONCACAF's website but could there be a reversal? (Here it is. -H)

Whatever the excuse is from the FA, it can't have anything to do with the lack of an international stadium.

UPDATE #2: This article from the Nassau Guardian explains the main issue behind the reported withdrawal.  Bahamas' national stadium was rebuilt thanks to financing and construction funded by the Chinese (PRC) government.  The Chinese part of the project was completed on time, but the Bahamian part of the project -- construction of roads, sewer systems, parking and landscaping -- started at least four months late.  Worse, the stadium operation teams, which have to be staffed by Bahamaians, have not yet been formed. 

As a result, Bahamas has a gleaming new stadium that is inoperable, like a sports car with no gas or tires.  What a profound embarrassment.  The costs to Bahamian football could be severe, at minimum a CHF20,000 fine up to and including exclusion from future World Cup qualifying cycles. (cf FIFA World Cup regulations)

Belize gets the all clear from FIFA

FIFA announced that Belize have been cleared to participate in the next round of the World Cup qualifiers that start next month after the Belizean government reached an agreement with the Football Federation of Belize (FFB) to hold new elections at the end of the year. 

Last month, the government refused to recognize the FFB as the governing body for football in the country and refused to provide security at the national team's home qualifier against Montserrat.  That match was moved to Honduras and the federation was provisionally suspended by FIFA.  Earlier this month, FIFA and CONCACAF officials traveled to Belize to broker an agreement between all parties.  With this agreement, the FFB will continue to perform its duties as the governing body of the sport in the country, with fresh elections for the executive board by the 10th of December.

So the government and the dissident groups within the Belizean football hierarchy will not see the immediate departure of FFB president Bertie Chimilio, but might be able to make that happen later this year.  (Several members of the FFB Executive Committee have already searched for the exits, such as 2nd Vice President David Jones over the weekend.) The four months should provide them with enough time to coalesce behind a common candidate and formulate a reform plan for football in the country.  If Chimilio is the impediment to the sport's progress as they claim, it's important that they do not fail.

Who will advance to the group stages of CONCACAF WC Qualifying?

The first legs of the preliminary round ties of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying are now complete, and we now have a much clearer idea of the relative strengths of the bottom ten CONCACAF national teams.  These matches have gone quite some way in demonstrating just how stratified the level of quality of the national teams is in this region; even among the bottom ten teams there have been some lopsided results.  Three ties are just about over, while two have all to play for.

FIFA kicks the Belize can down the road

FIFA's Emergency Committee has temporarily lifted the suspension of Belize's football federation until 15 August, which will allow the second leg of their preliminary round match against Montserrat to go forward.  FIFA suspended the FFB from international competition after the Belizean government ruled that the FFB was no longer authorized to represent the country in international competitions and then refused to offer security arrangements for the second leg match in Belize.  That match will now be played outside of the country in order to avoid any possibility of a further clash between the government and the federation.

Belize look like strong favorites to advance to the group stages of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, but they are still in danger of being excluded from the competition.  It's clear that FIFA is giving both sides a chance to come to an agreement, andt it's also clear that FIFA will not permit the government to force out the FFB leadership.  FIFA stated that if the two parties are unable to reach an agreement by the middle of next month, Belize will once again be suspended from international competition. 

The big -- and forgotten -- losers of this mess are the Belizeans, who once again have to see their national team play a "home" qualifier in another country.

Nine days of World Cup qualifiers around the Caribbean

Time to get back into blogging after some time off to make my relocation...

This weekend the World Cup qualifiers restart in the CONCACAF region with two derbies in different parts of the Caribbean.  Two more series will start and finish within a three-day period next week.  It remains to be seen whether the second leg of the Montserrat-Belize series will be played, but if it's not by 10 July then Montserrat will achieve an unlikely classification to the group stages by default.

The first derby of the weekend will feature western Caribbean neighbors Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands in Providenciales.  As is typical with the minnow national teams, neither side has played a lot of games, but Bahamas have played more official matches thanks to Gold Cup qualifiers.  It's also difficult to find out more about the teams until -- in a lot of situations -- the day of the match.  In an interview with local media the Bahamian FA president says that his team is a collection of college-age and semi-pro players (he says that they are professional, which is really stretching the term as several players are with non-league football teams in England).  He goes on to say that Gavin Glinton, a MLS player who has appeared for TCI, will not be on the team for the qualifiers.  If that is true, then TCI's chances of causing an upset go way down. 

The other end of the Caribbean will see the two sets of Virgin Islands compete for a place in the second round group stage.  British Virgin Islands were very unlucky not to get past the first round against Bahamas in the previous cycle when they lost on "away" goals (both matches were played at the same stadium in the Bahamas).  The intervening years were not kind to BVI as they were hammered by Dominican Republic and Dominica in the 2010 Caribbean Cup.  That's still better than the performance of the US Virgin Islands, who are looking for their first win in over 13 years and their second win overall since becoming a FIFA member, which coincidentally was against the British Virgin Islands.  BVI do have one big claim to fame in that they were coached by one André Villas-Boas ten years ago.  So perhaps more than a few people at Chelsea will be paying attention to what happens in an obscure corner of the Caribbean. The USVI have completed their training camp in the eastern Caribbean and played a very young squad in matches in Puerto Rico and Anguilla.  Half of the squad was making their international debut, which could be an ominous thing in the tension of a World Cup qualifier. 

Next week I will focus on the Anguilla-Dominican Republic qualifier (I already previewed the Aruba-St. Lucia postponed qualifier).  This round is so hard to predict with any kind of precision, but I would have to say that Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands have the best chances to advance.

 

Kickoff to WC 2014 qualifying cycle delayed

I have seen reports on various forums that the St. Lucia - Aruba World Cup qualifier, originally scheduled for yesterday, has in fact been moved to a future date.  If you look at the CONCACAF World Cup qualification page on Wikipedia, you will see that the dates of the tie have been moved to July, but the official page of the Aruban federation still lists June dates for the two matches.  I'd like to get confirmation of the changes from a source other than Wikipedia, but after searching the Caribbean news agency and the St. Lucian and Aruban newspapers I have yet to find any mention of the World Cup qualifier.  Neither FIFA's website nor the international online betting sites have any record of the qualifier occurred, and if anyone would know about a World Cup qualifier occurring in an obscure part of the world, it would be a bunch of degenerate gamblers.

I've given up searching; I have other things to do today.  At this moment it looks like Montserrat and Belize will kick off the qualifying cycle, but in CONCACAF everything is subject to change.

 

Will Jack Warner dump on Blatter?

The Trinidad Guardian is reporting that suspended CONCACAF president Jack Warner will release email correspondence involving recently reelected FIFA president Sepp Blatter that he claims will exonerate him and "send shockwaves through the football world."  The presentation will be part of a rally that he will be conducting at his parliamentary office in Trinidad & Tobago this afternoon and broadcast all over the country.  At the time of this writing, the rally should have concluded, so I'd like to know if he followed through on his threat.  I don't think it will change any views about Blatter's purported corruption; the members of FIFA demonstrated with their vote last week that they're fine with everything Blatter has been doing.

Warner, who is also a T&T MP and member of the ruling Government cabinet, has been facing calls from the Opposition to step aside while the FIFA investigation is ongoing.  Warner responded that he will stay where he is.

UPDATE: Simon Evans (North America sports reporter for Reuters) on his Twitter feed reported that Warner decided not to make his document release on the advice of his attorneys.  What a letdown.

St. Lucia and Aruba kick off the 2014 World Cup qualifying cycle

On Sunday, St Lucia and Aruba will start the World Cup qualifying cycle which begins with matches between Caribbean micro-states and concludes with inter-confederation playoffs in late 2013.  Whereas in previous cycles the first-round winners of the CONCACAF qualifiers would face another two-leg series followed by certain elimination, the winners of this round will be rewarded with more competitive matches and more home matches, and challenged with increased travel all over the region. 

As is the case with the smaller Caribbean teams, information on them is extremely difficult to come by.  In the case of Aruba, the national team has not played an official match this year, just two in 2010, and four in 2008.  They did not even bother to enter the qualification tournament for this year's Gold Cup.  During that time, the Arubans have scored just once and allowed 13.  Only Antigua & Barbuda and Netherlands Antilles failed to score at least three against them.  Maurice Escalona of SV Britannia is Aruba's all-time leading goalscorer -- with two goals.  The national team coach, Elvis "Epi" Albertus, was a coach at one of the island sides (SV La Fama) but I don't have more information on him.  The squad is comprised of local players drawn primarily from the two most successful Aruban clubs in recent times (SV Britannia and SV Estrella), but aside from goalkeeper Jeffrey Werleman, Aruba are extremely inexperienced in international play.  Aruba have an existing partnership with the Dutch FA in which the Europeans will provide UEFA 'C' license training to youth coaches.  Perhaps that partnership will pay off in the future, but its impact won't be evident on Sunday nor even in the next qualifying cycle.

St Lucia have sparse football infrastructure in absolute terms, but much more skilled and experienced players and better resources in relative terms.  St Lucia played four World Cup qualifying matches in the 2010 cycle, then two years passed before the next round of official matches in the Caribbean Cup. The federation also has ties with Europe, but in St Lucia's case the English have supplied the federation with technical assistance and personnel such as technical director Ces Podd and Carlisle United manager Greg Abbott, who will take charge of the national team through the qualifiers.  St Lucia's training program isn't all that sophisticated, but more advanced than most of the smallest Caribbean associations. 

At this stage of the qualifiers, the differences between the competing national teams reduce to matters of experience.  In that situation, St Lucia will always come out on top, and I expect them to advance to the second round next week.