Just two weeks in­to prepa­ra­tion ahead of the Women’s World Cup Qual­i­fiers, which will be­gin next month, re­cent­ly ap­point­ed na­tion­al coach An­gus Eve has re­signed.

His res­ig­na­tion, on Sun­day (Oc­to­ber 19) comes fol­low­ing a de­ci­sion to take dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against strik­er Asha James for a Face­book post in which she crit­i­cised team­mate Ken­nya ‘Ya Ya’ Cord­ner for a per­ceived crit­i­cism of the team se­lect­ed by Eve ahead of an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match with Ja­maica on Oc­to­ber 28 at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va.

In her post, James said, “Seems like 4 years away from the na­tion­al team se­tup­didn’t give ‘Ya Ya’ enough time to ma­ture and learn to for­give. Al­ways in your bible, yet hold­ing ha­tred to­ward oth­ers is crazy work, fam. In a time like this, where play­ers should be com­ing to­geth­er, you're still com­ing with that neg­a­tive, self­ish mind­set. Whomev­er the coach choos­es for the team is at his dis­cre­tion. Go and get a coach­ing li­cence if you know who should be on the team.”

In a meet­ing on Mon­day night with Eve, his as­sis­tant Den­sill Theobald, and team man­ag­er Maylee At­tin-John­son to de­cide on a course of ac­tion for James for her post, Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that a rec­om­men­da­tion was made for the play­er to be dropped from the team. How­ev­er, it is al­leged that Coach Eve called for her to be giv­en a less­er sanc­tion, such as a fine.

It is un­der­stood that a rec­om­men­da­tion was made to drop James for the friend­ly match against Ja­maica, which Eve was against, and sug­gest­ed that the play­er be fined. He then left the meet­ing. How­ev­er, the dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion tak­en there­after was to sus­pend her.

Up­on learn­ing of the de­ci­sion, Eve ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion via a let­ter, which stat­ed, “Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, I have de­cid­ed to re­sign from all head coach­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties re­lat­ed to the T&T Se­nior Women’s Na­tion­al Team. I want to thank you for this op­por­tu­ni­ty pro­vid­ed dur­ing my time with the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion and for the sup­port of my coach­ing staff.”

“I am will­ing to en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion and glad­ly as­sist in any way pos­si­ble, in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing guid­ance to my suc­ces­sor. “Thank you again for the in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence, and I am al­ways open to work­ing with the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion if called,” the let­ter stat­ed.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was al­so re­li­ably in­formed that the res­ig­na­tion sur­round­ed con­cerns about the team se­lec­tion and the ap­point­ment of a cap­tain for the Ja­maica match.

On­ly over the week­end, Jinelle James, the di­rec­tor of Women’s Foot­ball at the T&TFA, re­vealed the progress made by the team af­ter just two weeks of train­ing, say­ing they had in­creased the days of prepa­ra­tion from two to four, while two for­eign-based play­ers, Maria-Frances Ser­rant and de­fend­er Kedie John­son, had been con­firmed for the Ja­maica game.

T&T has been drawn in Group F of the World Cup Qual­i­fiers, along­side Hon­duras, El Sal­vador and Bar­ba­dos. The 2025–26 Con­ca­caf W Qual­i­fiers will in­clude 29 Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions and will take place dur­ing the FI­FA Women’s In­ter­na­tion­al Match Win­dows in No­vem­ber 2025 and Feb­ru­ary and April 2026.

For these qual­i­fiers, which will not in­clude the re­gion’s two top-ranked na­tions (they have re­ceived a bye to the W Cham­pi­onship), par­tic­i­pat­ing teams will be split in­to six groups for Group Stage play.

Dur­ing the Group Stage, each team will play two match­es at home and two away. At the con­clu­sion of this round, the six group win­ners will ad­vance to the Con­ca­caf W Cham­pi­onship.

The 29 na­tions con­firmed to par­tic­i­pate in the 2025–26 Con­ca­caf W Qual­i­fiers are, in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der: An­guil­la, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Aru­ba, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Cu­ba, Cu­ra­cao, Do­mini­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, El Sal­vador, Grena­da, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Hon­duras, Ja­maica, Mex­i­co, Nicaragua, Pana­ma, Puer­to Ri­co, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lu­cia, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the US Vir­gin Is­lands.

In Eve’s ab­sence, Theobald has tak­en over as the team’s coach, but it is un­der­stood the TTFA is like­ly to be on the search for an­oth­er coach. James, a tidy strik­er for the T&T team over the years, is ex­pect­ed to of­fer an apol­o­gy up­on her re­turn to the team.