January 8 – Just before Christmas 2022 the Trinidad and Tobago FA (TTFA) creditors were told that they would be paid a settlement that was agreed to allow the FA to exit bankruptcy and ultimately progress from being run by a FIFA appointed Normalisation Committee and returning to an FA run by its elected members.
The money to pay creditors – coming from FIFA – was said to be in the process of being deposited with TTFA trustee and insolvency specialist Maria Daniels and that payments would be swiftly dispersed.
Come round to Christmas 2024 and once again the bulk of those creditors have been the turkeys.
Having agreed to settle with Daniels (who acts for accountancy business Ernst and Young) for 63 cents on the dollar in May 2022, the amount was then dropped to 37 cents on the dollar. An amount that the major creditors would likely never have agreed to. Many are still waiting for payment while Daniels is doubtless still racking up fees.
Daniels has US$3.5 million of funds, provided by FIFA, to settle the debts to more than 290 creditors. For the bulk of the creditors the agreement is a good one in that they will receive full payment – every debt under TT$200,000 ($20,000) was being honoured.
But for five coaches in particular – Stephen Hart, Russell Latopy, Anton Corneal (former technical director), Kendall Warkes and Dennis Lawrence – perhaps the men who gave most to their country in terms of making them competitive in international football and recognised worldwide, the loss of a further 26% of what they agreed at the creditors’ meeting left a bitter taste in 2022. In 2025 most of those creditors are still outstanding.
At the time Daniels told creditors that the reduction was due to an amount (estimated at $360,000) being held in trust while on-going claims by former English coach Terry Fenwick and the somewhat invisible former marketing director of the TTFA, Peter Miller, made their way through the court system.
The two Englishmen were both brought into the TTFA by former chairman William Wallace and former technical director Keith Look Loy. It is understood that, incredibly, Miller has been paid, while Fenwick is still believed to be appealing.
In April 2024, after four years of a normalisation committee, one of the world’s most corrupt football associations finally had a newly elected president in Kieron Edwards.
Edwards has no jurisdiction over the creditor’s funds, but the ‘new’ TTFA is starting to look remarkably like the old in terms of its governance with issues arising around the award of contracts, including the organisation of the twin island republic’s major youth tournament.
Same old TTFA, always spending
While the old debt remains an issue, Edwards’ TTFA has carried on in the old ways, racking up new debt amounting to hundreds of thousand of dollars owed to referees, instructors and assessors for the Trinidad and Tobago Premier Football League (TTPFL) season that ended in June 2024.
Edwards’ regime had promised the debt would be paid by December 31.
A report in the Trinidad Express said that chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) Referees Committee, Osmond Downer, had responded to a complaint from the referees, saying the TTFA are awaiting the release of funds from the Sports Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SporTT) to start the payment of arrears.
As usual with anything to do with Trinidad football, someone else is to blame. Downer said the new TTFA executive board was only made aware of the “massive” amount owed when the administration began their new term.
So it was the FIFA Normalisation Committee’s fault for not providing accurate information and for building an unsustainable football system?
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