The Board of Di­rec­tors of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion will have to de­cide if it will con­sid­er a last-ditch bat­tle for own­er­ship of the ‘So­ca War­riors’ name af­ter a for­mer Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny (TBC) em­ploy­ee, Steve Dip­nar­ine, ad­mit­ted that he was the one who coined the phrase ‘So­ca War­riors.’

Dip­nar­ine, who held the po­si­tion of mar­ket­ing man­ag­er in the ra­dio di­vi­sion of the TBC, a po­si­tion that en­tailed cre­at­ing pro­mo­tions to com­mer­cialise the rights they had for foot­ball, and in par­tic­u­lar, World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing, is­sued a re­lease on the mat­ter.

Dip­nar­ine said his sole pur­pose was to clar­i­fy the ori­gin of the name ‘So­ca War­riors’. He said on Fri­day, in no way is the re­cent­ly high­light­ed trade­mark reg­is­tra­tion a mat­ter of con­tention in a re­lease.

He al­so said he is will­ing to as­sist the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion with a le­gal chal­lenge against Melville for the right to the name if it so de­sired. Con­tact­ed soon af­ter, Kieron Ed­wards, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), said while they’re lean­ing more to­ward se­cur­ing a new name for the coun­try’s se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball team, the Board will have to de­cide whether they will want to chal­lenge vet­er­an sports com­men­ta­tor Sel­wyn Melville legal­ly for the So­ca War­riors trade­mark.

“I can have dis­cus­sions with them (TTFA), I had dis­cus­sions with the pre­vi­ous pres­i­dent. My on­ly in­ter­est is to clar­i­fy in the pub­lic in­ter­est, the ori­gin of this theme, but in the in­ter­est of foot­ball, I am will­ing to dis­cuss any­thing with the TTFA be­cause I’ve worked with them for years,” Dip­nar­ine ex­plained.

His com­ments come three years af­ter Melville re­ceived the trade­mark cer­tifi­cate for the term So­ca War­riors, which is the nick­name for the T&T men’s foot­ball team.

In 1998, Melville coined the nick­name So­ca War­riors while cov­er­ing a T&T men’s team en­counter against El Sal­vador in the Unit­ed States. The team were called So­ca War­riors dur­ing their suc­cess­ful 2006 FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign, with so­ca artiste Max­imus Dan (now MX Prime) re­leas­ing a song called Fight­er, which was ded­i­cat­ed to the squad.

Since 2005, Melville has been in a le­gal bat­tle with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (now T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) con­cern­ing the own­er­ship of the nick­name.

Dip­nar­ine, whose open chal­lenge of the orig­i­na­tion of the So­ca War­riors name was fol­lowed by a re­lease he is­sued to the lo­cal me­dia yes­ter­day, sought to clear the air on the de­vel­op­ment, say­ing, “I have had some dis­cus­sion with the TTFA be­cause of their cur­rent im­passe over the name, and it dates back to since Jack Warn­er was there and then David John-Williams, he was very ac­tive in that, try­ing to re­solve it. But my con­cern is not in­volve­ment, it’s not about the reg­is­tra­tion of the name, I am just a by­stander in that, that is a mat­ter for the TTFA, and who­ev­er claims to have the reg­is­tra­tion rights.

“My on­ly con­tention is how the name orig­i­nat­ed, and I have pre­pared a re­lease which I in­tend to send out lat­er. In my ca­pac­i­ty as mar­ket­ing man­ag­er in the ra­dio di­vi­sion, you know 105fm was big in sports cov­er­age, and that was my role and my ca­pac­i­ty there, to cov­er sports in a big way, and ex­pand the sports cov­er­age for both crick­et and foot­ball. What I dealt with was cre­at­ing a pro­mo­tion to com­mer­cialise the rights we had for foot­ball and World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing, and part of that was when I cre­at­ed that name with a small team that in­volved a com­men­ta­tor and a brand man­ag­er. That is how that name was cre­at­ed, and it was pro­mot­ed ag­gres­sive­ly in the com­pa­ny and in­vest­ed in heav­i­ly and then giv­en to the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing to Dip­nar­ine, “One mem­ber of the team went pri­vate­ly and sought to reg­is­ter the trade­name, and that is how that sec­ond is­sue came about, but I am on­ly con­cerned about the first is­sue, to cor­rect for the record how that name orig­i­nat­ed in 2001.”

Though prompt­ed to take over the name, the TTFA lat­er adopt­ed the name be­tween six to nine months af­ter it was pro­posed to them, Dip­nar­ine said. Melville said Dip­nar­ine is a stranger to the truth, but he doesn’t have to lie to any­one about the trade­mark.

With the coun­try’s se­nior foot­ball team on the verge of the fi­nal round of the World Cup Qual­i­fiers dur­ing the FI­FA Win­dows of Sep­tem­ber, Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber, where it will con­test a four-team group with Cu­ra­cao, Ja­maica and Bermu­da, Melville is propos­ing the So­ca War­riors name for use by the TTFA on a five-year deal that will cost the TTFA $3 mil­lion a year, while he main­tains own­er­ship of the So­ca War­riors name.

How­ev­er, that of­fer was re­ject­ed for a TTFA of­fer of be­tween $1.5 to $2 mil­lion to pur­chase the So­ca War­riors trade­mark.

The Board of the TTFA is ex­pect­ed to meet over the week­end. Dip­nar­ine con­clud­ed yes­ter­day by telling Guardian Me­dia Sports, “I have ex­pressed my views to the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion and dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers that I would like to see a res­o­lu­tion among the par­ties in the best in­ter­est of foot­ball.

“The name was rel­e­vant then, but they will have to de­ter­mine based on mar­ket stud­ies whether that name is still rel­e­vant; that is for them to do. I have not re­al­ly got­ten in­volved in that as­pect of this is­sue; I have stayed clear of that.”