For­mer T&T foot­ball cap­tain, now turned Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, David Nakhid, is call­ing on the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) to make an of­fi­cial ap­pli­ca­tion for help with changes in the im­mi­gra­tion laws if they are se­ri­ous.

Na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke added to the nu­mer­ous re­quests up­on tak­ing over at the helm of the T&T se­nior foot­ball team in No­vem­ber, a re­quest that for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said his gov­ern­ment (PNM) was will­ing to as­sist with.

Chap­ter two, sec­tion 17 (ii) of the TT Con­sti­tu­tion states that “A per­son shall not be­come a cit­i­zen of TT, if at the time of his birth – (a) nei­ther of his par­ents is a cit­i­zen of TT.”

In­ter­na­tion­al play­ers with T&T parent­age can­not earn cit­i­zen­ship if the grand­par­ents are Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. This sit­u­a­tion has pre­vent­ed many po­ten­tial play­ers with T&T parent­age with the abil­i­ty to bol­ster the T&T team. In the mean­time, sev­er­al Caribbean na­tions have used the law to their ad­van­tage, as it in­creas­es their play­er pool.

TTFA pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, said he is al­ready in the process of sub­mit­ting the rel­e­vant doc­u­ments.

Nakhid, who rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try at the high­est lev­el, be­fore go­ing abroad to ply his trade, told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day, that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar is will­ing to do every­thing with­in rea­son to help the So­ca War­riors qual­i­fy for the 2026 FI­FA World Cup, which will be host­ed by the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and Mex­i­co.

"We haven't been ap­proached of­fi­cial­ly by any­one con­cern­ing the im­mi­gra­tion laws. Just as you've told me, that's how we heard about it, from me­dia per­son­nel and so­cial me­dia but no one ap­proached the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs about the grand­fa­ther law kick­ing in to ac­com­mo­date play­ers com­ing in­to the na­tion­al team, but there has been no of­fi­cial word as far as I know. So maybe, if they're in­ter­est­ed, the TTFA would have to reach out," Nakhid said.

"Maybe they met with the Min­is­ter and spoke about it, but they haven't writ­ten of­fi­cial­ly that I've seen. I would imag­ine that the TTFA, if what you're say­ing is true, that they're in­ter­est­ed in that, then the first thing they would have done is to send an of­fi­cial let­ter to the min­is­ter, ask­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of hav­ing that leg­is­lat­ed, be­cause there would have to be leg­is­la­tion to have that take place. As far as I know, noth­ing has been re­ceived. Maybe they held talks with the min­is­ter, but I don't know if they sent any­thing of­fi­cial­ly about it."

On­ly re­cent­ly, coach Yorke hint­ed that he would utilise play­ers from abroad to solve the de­fen­sive prob­lem his team has been grap­pling with. In 12 match­es played un­der him to date, the So­ca War­riors have not con­ced­ed just once, which was a 4-0 beat­ing of Cu­ba at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va.

The So­ca War­riors will next face the fi­nal round of the World Cup qual­i­fiers in a group with Ja­maica, Cu­ra­cao and Bermu­da, where home-and-away match­es will be played in the FI­FA Win­dows in Sep­tem­ber, Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber.

Should they top the group, they will earn au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Oth­er­wise, they will have to be among the two best sec­ond-place teams to progress to an In­ter-Con­fed­er­a­tion play-off.

Nakhid al­so said he will meet with Min­is­ter Phillip Watts soon to sort out the is­sue of the ap­point­ment of the Board of Di­rec­tors of the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to Nakhid, "What we want to do is use sports as a ve­hi­cle to de­vel­op the youth and turn them in­to in­ter­na­tion­al­ly or re­gion­al­ly ac­claimed ath­letes in all sports, or at the very least stu­dent-ath­letes, and mod­el cit­i­zens. So, this is what we've been work­ing on since I'm here and putting a pol­i­cy in place, and hope­ful­ly we will be able to im­ple­ment it soon."