Head of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), Shaun Fuentes, com­plet­ed the UE­FA Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­pact Course at the UE­FA Head­quar­ters in Ny­on, Switzer­land, re­cent­ly.

Fuentes was the on­ly par­tic­i­pant from the Con­ca­caf re­gion and the sole rep­re­sen­ta­tive out­side of UE­FA, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

The course took place over four days, dur­ing which Fuentes en­gaged with top pro­fes­sion­als from across Eu­ro­pean, in­clud­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion heads from fed­er­a­tions such as the Eng­lish FA, Span­ish FA, Irish FA, Scot­tish FA, Ger­man FA, Greek Su­per League, Nor­we­gian FA, and clubs like Re­al Madrid, AC Mi­lan, Ar­se­nal, and Ju­ven­tus.

The com­ple­tion of the course means Fuentes has now been of­fi­cial­ly wel­comed in­to the UE­FA Acad­e­my Alum­ni net­work, which will al­low for on­go­ing net­work­ing and fu­ture ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

A re­lease from the TTFA said, "The course fo­cused on build­ing and ex­e­cut­ing ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies in foot­ball, with ses­sions cov­er­ing top­ics such as: Strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions frame­works led by Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor Aman­da Docher­ty.

"Da­ta-dri­ven me­dia strat­e­gy and suc­cess mea­sure­ment with in­sights from Nielsen and Comms Clar­i­ty Cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and stake­hold­er en­gage­ment with ex­perts like Rod Cartwright and Manu Leroy (for­mer Bel­gian FA). Con­tent cre­ation and tac­ti­cal ac­ti­va­tion fea­tur­ing speak­ers from Tik­Tok, Atléti­co Madrid, and UE­FA. The role of AI in mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tions, pre­sent­ed by An­drew B. Smith, Po­lit­i­cal ad­vo­ca­cy, me­dia re­la­tions, and am­pli­fy­ing the women’s game with UE­FA am­bas­sadors, in­clud­ing Sa­mi Khedi­ra and Ani­ta As­ante."

Fuentes, re­flect­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence, said: "It was an ho­n­our to rep­re­sent T&T in such a glob­al space. The lev­el of in­sight, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and open­ness at UE­FA was re­mark­able. This course has strength­ened my abil­i­ty to build more im­pact­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies at home, es­pe­cial­ly with the 2026 FI­FA World Cup on the hori­zon for the Con­ca­caf re­gion.

"It’s about more than mes­sag­ing; it’s about con­nect­ing deeply with au­di­ences, adapt­ing through da­ta, and en­sur­ing every stake­hold­er feels val­ued. I humbly hope my in­volve­ment in this pro­gramme can in­spire oth­ers to fol­low suit, for those in lo­cal foot­ball to be pro­gres­sive, em­brace new ideas, and help lift the stan­dard across the board."

Mean­while, Kieron Ed­wards, who al­so praised Fuentes on his ac­com­plish­ment, said, "Shaun's par­tic­i­pa­tion in this elite UE­FA course is a proud mo­ment for the TTFA and the wider Caribbean foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty. His growth will di­rect­ly en­hance our abil­i­ty to po­si­tion T&T more pow­er­ful­ly on the world stage. We were hap­py at the FA to sup­port his ef­forts. As we work to­ward World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion and con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment, these glob­al con­nec­tions and in­sights are in­valu­able."

Aman­da Docher­ty, UE­FA Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor, and for­mer head of Ar­se­nal Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Eng­lish FA Comms Di­rec­tor, added: "In the fast-mov­ing, high-stakes sports en­vi­ron­ment, this course equips com­mu­ni­ca­tions lead­ers with strate­gic tools and frame­works, as well as cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills need­ed to en­sure that mes­sages and tac­tics are in align­ment with or­gan­i­sa­tion­al goals. This course show­cas­es how ef­fec­tive we can be when we pause, think, and de­vel­op a com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy as op­posed to sim­ply re­act­ing to the con­stant news agen­da.

"It's spe­cial hav­ing fed­er­a­tions from all over the world par­tic­i­pate in the UE­FA Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­pact Course. An es­sen­tial el­e­ment of the pro­gramme is shar­ing in­sights, ex­chang­ing ideas and peer-to-peer learn­ing. We were de­light­ed to host Shaun from the TTFA on this year's edi­tion of the course. Shaun pos­i­tive­ly con­tributed to the suc­cess of the pro­gramme, and I hope he en­joyed the mix of the­o­ry, im­mer­sive learn­ing, and the guest speak­ers, and will take those learn­ings and im­ple­ment them with­in the fed­er­a­tion."