Right intention, wrong process.
That’s how Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) president Raymond Tim Kee described his decision to hire Stephen Hart as senior national head coach at the expense of previous co-head coaches Jamaal Shabazz and Hutson Charles.
While Charles—who has been T&T head coach for over a year, including eight months alongside Shabazz—and Derek King have been included in the technical team as assistant coaches to Hart, Shabazz has declined the offer.
Tim Kee stated yesterday at a press conference to officially unveil Hart as national coach—who subsequently had his first training session with the team at Hasely Crawford Stadium—that in retrospect, he would have handled the changeover differently.
Tim Kee also conceded that since his tenure began in November last year he had made some mistakes, but said he was learning.
The TTFA head remarked that a lot of comments and speculation had been made in the media after he had been spotted with former T&T coach Leo Beenhakker at the team’s recent outing away to Romania, most of which he said was untrue.
Tim Kee said his decision to replace Charles and Shabazz did not mean they were “not good enough”. But he added that if the TTFA’s latest move did not pan out, he would be the first to apologise for it.
Tim Kee said Beenhakker was not an original target of the TTFA, but he made the decision after a friendly chat with the Dutchman during the T&T/Romania encounter. Hart, he said, was among the coaching profiles shown to Beenhakker, as the former T&T coach had requested, and he agreed with Beenhakker’s assessment. But that was not his sole reason for the change, he said.
“Given the time frame we had for this Gold Cup, and that I saw an opportunity for the coaches to get some assistance, I agreed for his inclusion in the technical staff for the position of head coach,” Tim Kee said. “All this time, all I was thinking about is assisting our coaches.”
He touted Hart’s experience at the CONCACAF level, pointing out that as Canada coach, Hart had presided over 45 matches, with 20 wins, ten draws and 15 losses. That experience, he felt, would be a bonus for the national team.
“We cannot go to the Gold Cup and be disgraced,” Tim Kee stressed, adding that Hart has already “walked that [CONCACAF] terrain”.
About Shabazz’s decision to decline an offer for assistant coach, Tim Kee said he understood the former Guyana coach’s decision, and said he might have made the same call in that position. He said he did ask Shabazz to stay on, and left the door wide open for some future role for the Caledonia AIA technical director.
Tim Kee also said many changes were coming to the TTFA, including a new constitution, which is currently being hammered out.
New marketing thrusts, he said, are in the works to improve the fortunes of the team, and also to pay off the “millions” in debts to in excess of 100 creditors.
He did point out, though, that the Ministry of Sport committed to assisting T&T’s Gold Cup efforts, inclusive of paying coaches, including Shabazz and Charles, who had been working without salary for months.