Shaun Fuentes

Sev­er­al have ex­pressed their feel­ings on the re­cent saga in­volv­ing ex-FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er and Mo­hamed Bin Ham­mam.But both have found sup­port in Spain's An­gel Vil­lar, one their for­mer col­leagues.The pres­i­dent of the Span­ish Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion is al­so a FI­FA vice pres­i­dent. He said in an in­ter­view with the Span­ish Dai­ly Mar­ca that Warn­er will al­ways have his sup­port. "They will al­ways have a friend in me, who­ev­er that an­noys," Vil­lar said."Even more so now that they are suf­fer­ing," Vil­lar added.Warn­er has since re­signed from FI­FA while Bin Ham­mam, who was stand­ing against in­cum­bent Sepp Blat­ter in the elec­tion, was sus­pend­ed for life by FI­FA's ethics com­mit­tee, and Blat­ter was re-elect­ed."Can you tell me what fam­i­ly in the world is ex­empt from prob­lems?" Vil­lar asked. Blat­ter mean­time, while in Rio de Janeiro for the 2014 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing draw on the week­end, was asked to com­ment on the re­cent cor­rup­tion scan­dal and said it could take an­oth­er three years to re­store FI­FA's bat­tered rep­u­ta­tion."It is im­por­tant that in 2014, one year be­fore the end of my term, is the cul­mi­na­tion of all work to give a bet­ter pic­ture of FI­FA."We in­vite you to give us the time to build this new im­age. Let's change things with pa­tience. Let us use this World Cup, through our spon­sors and broad­casts to pass pos­i­tive mes­sages. The ob­jec­tive is to use good foot­ball and have ze­ro tol­er­ance with­in and out­side the field," Blat­ter said.

James cred­it­ed for good sports­man­ship

De­fend­er Julius James was named in the USA To­day's MLS Best eleven for his rock sol­id show­ing in Colum­bus Crew's 2-0 win over Re­al Salt Lake on Sat­ur­day. But greater than that he came in for high praise from Crew boss Robert Warzy­cha for not re­tal­i­at­ing against Salt Lake for­ward Fabi­an Es­pin­dola who re­peat­ed­ly hit James about the body dur­ing the match.Cam­eras showed Warzy­cha sprint­ing off the bench as James went to talk to the of­fi­cials an d then lead­ing his play­er off the field while oth­ers kept Esp&ia­cute;ndola at bay."I saw him be­hind Julius, and so I said I would have to take [James] be­cause he would have to de­fend him­self," Warzy­cha said. "He would have to. He wouldn't have a choice. I took things in my hands and pushed him to the lock­er room.""I'm so proud be­cause in the past there would have been a re­ac­tion by Julius, but I think he proved that he re­al­ly is a pro­fes­sion­al and he is the play­er he al­ways want­ed to be," Warzy­cha said."This proved that he is tak­ing his game to the next lev­el."James com­ment­ed: "We ex­changed some words. I nev­er be­came phys­i­cal and I nev­er hit him. He hit me three or four times. He punched me in the stom­ach. I got el­bows in the chest."He punched me in the ribs and back. Every sin­gle time I called the ref­er­ee, there was no re­ac­tion," James said."The lines­man was see­ing every­thing. He didn't do any­thing, which is ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous."

US-based Ro­get­sees fu­ture with T&T

Unit­ed States-based for­ward Cameron Ro­get hadn't played a com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball match un­til the re­cent Olympic Qual­i­fy­ing first round in Do­mini­ca but once he got the chance from head coach An­gus Eve he proud­ly put on the na­tion­al shirt and gave his all for the red, white and black.He start­ed T&T's fi­nal Group match against the hosts and scored a cru­cial open­er to set the pace for T&T's 4-0 win which pushed them through to the CFU fi­nal round in No­vem­ber.Pre­vi­ous­ly Ro­get had been in the pro­vi­sion­al squad for the T&T Un­der 17s which played at the 2007 FI­FA Un­der 17 World Cup in South Ko­rea."It was re­al­ly great be­ing with some of my team­mates again. I hadn't seen them in some time but the chem­istry was there and every­thing just clicked once we were on the field, the ca­ma­raderie was def­i­nite­ly there."Scor­ing my first goal for T&T was def­i­nite­ly a great feel­ing," Ro­get said.Cur­rent­ly at­tached to US club San Diego Bo­ca, Ro­get is in­tent on mov­ing up the pro­fes­sion­al ranks ei­ther to the MLS or even the T&T Pro League.""Bo­ca had an okay sea­son last year but I'm look­ing at any pos­si­ble op­tions. My dream is to play for Ar­se­nal in Eng­land but if the MLS opens a door then I'll def­i­nite­ly take it or even in T&T."My am­bi­tion is to con­tin­ue play­ing for T&T and move on to their se­nior team," Ro­get added.Ro­get says his com­mit­ment re­mains with T&T un­like an­oth­er US-based play­er in Aaron Maund who played for T&T in the 2007 World Cup but then switched as­so­ci­a­tions in or­der to join the US team at the 2009 FI­FA Un­der 20 World Cup.

Hold­er gets play­ing time with New York

FC New York on Mon­day con­firmed for­mer Queen's Roy­al Col­lege goal­keep­er Thorne Hold­er as its new sign­ing for the re­main­der of the USL Pro sea­son.Hold­er was pre­vi­ous­ly signed by MLS club Philadel­phia Union but was waived af­ter fail­ing to make on­ly one ap­pear­ance, a sec­ond half show­ing in a friend­ly against Ever­ton as well as four re­serve league games."He is ex­treme­ly ath­let­ic and com­mands at­ten­tion on the field," said New York Di­rec­tor of Soc­cer Car­lo Aquista.Hold­er made an ap­pear­ance for New York in a 3-1 loss to Wilm­inghton Ham­mer­heads last Fri­day. An­oth­er play­er el­i­gi­ble to play for T&T, Quame Hold­er is al­so on the New York ros­ter.In oth­er USL ac­tion, Kendall Jagdeosingh net­ted a 23rd minute goal in Rochester Rhi­nos' 2-2 draw with Char­lotte Ea­gles for which To­ba­go-born play­er Dar­ren To­by played the full 90.In re­lat­ed news, de­fend­er Daneil Cyrus played for 80 min­utes in Sport­ing Kansas' 1-1 draw with New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion in the MLS on Sat­ur­day.