David John-Williams, the T&T Football Association president, is hoping the Soca Warriors can get maximum six points in its next two matches of the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers against St Vincent and the Grenadines.
He says this will be his New Year’s wish. “The Copa Centenario is history. It’s a big blow. We have to take the punch and right now the immediate goal is the two games against St Vincent/ Grenadines. We must target six points. Six points are not guaranteed but we must aim at it. I am hoping we can get six points against St Vincent and the United States gets six points against Guatemala and we can start planning for the Hex,” John-Williams said.
The football federation boss met with coach Stephen Hart to begin planning for the two matches, expected to be held in St Vincent first on March 25 and then at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on March 29. Six points in both matches will push T&T to ten points in four matches with two remaining games at home to Guatemala and away to the United States in September.
The top two teams from the group will advance to the CONCACAF Final round of six teams from which the top three will qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The fourth-place team will meet the fifth best team from Asia in the intercontinental playoff for a chance to qualify.
John-Williams said despite the recession, he was committed to pushing on with the business of T&T football as he sees it as a shining light for the country.
“Of course it’s a headache (financial challenges) but you live in hope. You try to do things that are very important to change the situation. It was disappointing that we did not get into the Copa Centenario. It would have been a good financial boost for the FA. But we live and we learn. We are still on target to complete our financial statements for February so we can probably access funding from FIFA.
“It is very critical for us to do our financial statements to show corporate Trinidad and Tobago that we are serious about what we do and that they can come back on board,” he said
According to John-Williams, “I just want to tell the public that we are a new administration I haven’t taken up this job to try and fail or feel sorry for myself. There will be challenges. At the end of the day I am president of all football in T&T. Not everybody will agree with what this administration does but I can assure them is it will be in the interest of T&T football.”
He also spoke on the dismissal of American coach Randy Waldrum as T&T women’s head coach, saying Richard Hood was named as the new coach on Wednesday.
“I did approach Randy because people asked me to talk to him. I told him we were on some tight deadlines and we agreed on certain dates for some proposals that didn’t happen. And we as an administration was under some pressure to deal with it and we dealt with it,” John-Williams said. He said Waldrum was not employed on a full-time basis.
“If I were to tell the current Soca Warriors that Stephen Hart is coaching in Bahrain and is going to come here every 20 days when there is a World Cup qualifier, the public will want to crucify me for it. Why should I do the women the same thing and this is exactly what was happening. You can’t sit in Houston, USA, and pick a team for my Trinidad and Tobago. The public needs to understand that” he noted.