PRESS STATEMENT

PRESS STATEMENT

The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association has worked closely with stakeholders to meet all requirements necessary for the participation of our National Teams in the various international competitions.

Over the past two years, several of our teams have competed in different tournaments ranging from the Senior Men’s and Women’s World Cup qualifying campaigns, the U-20 Men and Women, the U-17 Women, the Beach Soccer Men and Futsal Men’s qualifiers.

After much deliberation, we are now facing the possibility of taking the very tough decision of withdrawing from the upcoming Concacaf Girls Under-15 Championship in Tampa, Florida and the Caribbean Football Union Boys Under -14 Challenge Series in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. A number of factors have contributed to this decision including  challenges in securing the necessary travel visas to the United States along with financial constraints for air travel to the United States and Dominican Republic. 

Tampa, Florida was confirmed as the venue for the Girls Under 15 Championship on 6 June 2022 and despite our best efforts to communicate with all relevant stakeholders, even prior to that date, we have been unsuccessful in obtaining US travel visa appointments for 20 players and staff, while being cognizant of the well documented backlog of applications for US travel visa matters, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

We have also been engaging with the Sports Company of Trinidad and Tobago for assistance in obtaining the necessary funding for air travel to the two tournaments. 

We have acted in good faith and proceeded with the preparations for the respective tournaments through our High Performance Programme for the respective age-groups over the past few months.

The TTFA will continue to explore available options and will keep you updated on any further developments.