By Paul Nicholson
July 3 – The leak of witness statements from a 2013 Trinidad and Tobago court case concerning national team coach Terry Fenwick, the former English defender turned football manager-cum-marketing spiv, sheds more light via a series of shocking revelations concerning Fenwick’s violent temper, his extreme behaviour and his alleged and multiple fraudulent business dealings.
Incredibly, and supported seemingly unequivocally by the Trinidad and Tobago FA’s Normalisation Committee, Fenwick will today run a national training session with mixture of several national team players amongst youth players from his Football Factory, a grassroots level youth development business owned by Fenwick in Trinidad.
A number of accredited coaches from the TTFA are believed to be involved in the session, but only alongside Fenwick’s Football Factory staff.
Fenwick’s assent to the summit of the TTFA and his long association with the TTFA’s discredited marketing director – another Englishman – Peter Miller, again comes into focus in the leaked documents, a copy of which can be see via clicking on the link below.
2013.03.13- Breach of Contract- Terence Fenwick and San Juan Jabloteh
It is another episode in what has been an on-going pattern of collusion and deceit in pursuit of football’s ‘easy’ money in a country that has always played fast and loose with its. Football riches
In 2013 Fenwick made a claim in the Trinidad and Tobago High Court for breach of contract by San Juan Jabloteh Sports Club Ltd.
Jabloteh play in the Trinidad and Tobago Pro League and Fenwick had first been hired as coach as far back as 2001 (on the introduction of Peter Miller – the club’s marketing chief at the time), having then left in 2003 but returning in 2005. He left the club in 2009, eventually suing for breach of contract.
A witness statement provided by Jabloteh president Jerry Hospedales in 2013 to defend the claims, details a contract between the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) and Jabloteh that saw a three-year sponsorship provision of TT$1 million annually; for club naming rights and the underwriting of a development programme for all its football and netball teams.
That money was to be paid to Jabloteh. Fenwick’s contract of employment was made contingent on the continuation of the CLICO sponsorship. Fenwick was on a monthly salary of TT$50,000 plus benefits including a car and 50% of any money from player transfer fees (in 2001 he had set up a company with Miller called Pro Sports Caribbean based in Anguilla to handle transfer money from young Trinidad talent).
In fact, Hospedales in his witness statement says that a TT$1 million payment in December 2008 was never received by the club, but that it was made to IT Pod Holdings which Hospedales says was set up to manage the business of Magenta Holdings, a company reportedly run back then by the current and controversial TTFA marketing director Miller (See Pirates in the Caribbean: TTFA’s tale of woe and intrigue was not entirely homegrown).
Magenta in 2008 had begun discussion with Fenwick over plans for a three-year international development programme that included a three-year deal with Scottish giants Celtic for games against Jabloteh’s senior and junior teams, as well as the establishment of an academy in Trinidad. Conveniently the financial exposure for Fenwick and Magenta was TT$1 million, says Hospedales.
Hospedales then suggests a second cheque for TT$1 million from CLICO in January 2009 was intercepted by Fenwick – just a month after the first TT$1 million had been banked. Neither CLICO nor Jabloteh seem to be able to locate where the cheque was deposited. There is no comment from Fenwick documented in the court papers seen by Insideworldfootball.
The Celtic agreement appears to be as elusive as the cheque with Hospedales saying Celtic failed to turn up for a game when the senior Jabloteh team visited.
In December 2010, CLICO informed Jabloteh that it was cancelling its sponsorship. That triggered the clause in Fenwick’s contract that gave the club the right to release him. In 2013 Fenwick sued. It is understood the case reached a mediated settlement though the detail of that settlement has not been clarified to Insideworldfootball.
It is not just Fenwick’s business dealings that have gone unchecked but seemingly his general behaviour as well. According to Hospedales’ witness statement he details his leaving of a Pro League game 15 minutes before the end and on the way to his car being chased and physically threatened by Fenwick, who had left his position on the touchline to make his threats
Seven years later, Fenwick today takes the training of a selected group of Trinidad and Tobago’s youth players, overseen and encouraged by Trinidad and Tobago’s FA who are currently being run by a FIFA Normalisation Committee. Miller has also retained his marketing position within the TTFA. All sanctioned by interim TTFA chair Robert Hadad, the new broom trumpeted to clean up the twin island state’s football.
Last night a video was circulating on WhatsApp of Fenwick covering many of the issues (and more) above. It is worth watching, if only to see the quality elbow smash Fenwick (who is coaching) delivers to the head of an opposing team player in a Pro-League fixture as he celebrates a goal. Fenwick also got away with that assault.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734917138labto1734917138ofdlr1734917138owedi1734917138sni@n1734917138osloh1734917138cin.l1734917138uap1734917138