Nigel Si­mon

So­ca War­riors cap­tain and Cardiff City strik­er, Ken­wyne Jones has hint­ed that the on­go­ing dis­pute be­tween Min­is­ter of Sport and for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er Brent San­cho and T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee could force the cur­rent crop of play­ers to quit the se­nior team.

The Stephen Hart-coached So­ca War­riors are cur­rent­ly on a high and whip­ping Guatemala 3-1 and Cu­ba 2-0 in their first two 2015 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup match­es in the USA to qual­i­fy for the quar­ter­fi­nals for the first time ahead of their fi­nal group match which was against pow­er­house Mex­i­co last night.

A win or draw for the T&T squad (six points) against Mex­i­co (four points) will see T&T top a round-robin group for the first in the com­pe­ti­tion ahead of the quar­ter­fi­nals, where they were oust­ed two years ago af­ter a 1-0 loss to Mex­i­co.

How­ev­er, de­pend­ing on how far the T&T team reach­es in the tour­na­ment, it could well be the last for coach Hart and the core of play­ers, who from all re­ports have grown very frus­trat­ed over the con­stant pub­lic spats be­tween San­cho and Tim Kee, over fi­nan­cial sup­port for the na­tion­al team.

The lat­est feud erupt­ed last week over the re­quest from the TTFA for fund­ing to as­sist with cov­er­ing the team ex­pens­es at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in the USA along with a re­quest for match fees for the Women So­ca War­riors for the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Cana­da.

San­cho in re­sponse stat­ed that un­less the TTFA and Tim Kee was more trans­par­ent in their deal­ings with re­gards to fi­nances, his Min­istry was not go­ing to be sup­port­ive as it was in the past.

In a re­lease to the me­dia on the week­end, the TTFA sought to clear the air with re­gards to a claim by Min­is­ter San­cho that the or­gan­i­sa­tion was not forth­com­ing re­gard­ing funds re­ceived from Con­ca­caf.

The re­lease stat­ed that San­cho said he was told by the T&TFA they on­ly had "$13,000 (TT) in their ac­count so they couldn't pay for visas for the Un­der-23 Team," said San­cho, "but one of the chal­lenges we have is gaug­ing what they have and what they don't have be­cause we got in­for­ma­tion that they re­ceived US$100,000 from Con­ca­caf.

"Then, when they knew we were aware of it, they said they would get the mon­ey at the end of Ju­ly. Then, when we asked why prepara­to­ry mon­ey would on­ly be avail­able af­ter the tour­na­ment, they came back and said they would get it by the end of the week," end­ed San­cho."

The TTFA in re­sponse re­fut­ed those state­ment and is­sued a press re­lease that shed-light on the Min­is­ter's ac­cu­sa­tions.

Last of cur­rent na­tion­al team?

And yes­ter­day via his Face­book page, cap­tain Ken­wyne Jones with a keen eye on what was tak­ing place back home wrote on his sta­tus post: "This ain't no way a threat or dis­re­spect to no one but chances are re­al­ly high that this could be the last time they see this na­tion­al team to­geth­er sad but the re­al­i­ty...enough has been too much."

A for­mer strik­er in an­oth­er post on Jones' page stat­ed: "Again what's go­ing on with our na­tion­al team is noth­ing new. Pulling out re­sults and great per­for­mances out our ass­es with­out fund­ing and prop­er prepa­ra­tion."

In re­sponse Ken­wyne Jones wrote: "there will nev­er be peace in the squad whther I'm there or not," (fol­lowed by three cry faces and #Yuh­ThinkItEasy)

As ear­ly as 8.23am on Tues­day morn­ing, Jones who by then had read about the ex­changes be­tween TTFA pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee and his for­mer World Cup col­league, Brent San­cho stat­ed: "Morn­ing, so, while the feud con­tin­ues, the foot­ball suf­fers, note TT any­time we fall short in some­thing its al­ways a fund­ing is­sue, if this doesn't stop it can be the end of progress....egos aside put the foot­ball first..or leave the rel­e­vant of­fices held..."

The sta­tus quote re­ceived 180 likes with 35 com­ments and fol­lowed link shared by Jones head­lined..San­cho says no more fund­ing for T&TFA...un­less.

In fact, Jones was aware of the sit­u­a­tion be­tween both the T&TFA and Min­is­ter of Sport Brent San­cho which was play­ing out in the me­dia and stat­ed on his face­book page: "We play we fight....sup­port from the rel­e­vant body ?...still out­stand­ing smfh..."(106 likes and 11 com­ments)

Just last De­cem­ber on the eve of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Cup fi­nal against host Ja­maica in Mon­tego Bay, Jones was al­so a key man in the se­nior team threat­ened boy­cott of the match over the non-pay­ment of salaries, stipends and bonus­es to play­ers and tech­ni­cal staff alike.