Edwards: TTFA couldn’t afford to pay what Yorke was asking for

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad:

President of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA), Kieron Edwards, has revealed that the asking price of former national men's head coach Dwight Yorke was simply too high.

On Thursday, the TTFA announced that they had split ways with Yorke "by mutual agreement" after the two sides failed to reach a consensus on revised contractual terms and remuneration.

The 54-year-old Yorke was hired by the TTFA in November 2024 and given a mandate to guide T&T to the 2026 World Cup.

However, he failed to do so, as T&T finished third in Group B behind Jamaica and eventual winners Curacao, who qualified for their first ever FIFA World Cup.

Speaking in an exclusive interview on i95.5 FM on Thursday, Edwards admitted that the TTFA was not in a financial position to pay the salary Yorke had requested.

NORMALISATION

"I want to start off by saying that being the president of the executive coming off of normalisation, one of the things that we said was that never again is T&T to be put in a place where we are put under normalisation by FIFA based on finances. We need to run the organisation in a prudent way and we need to make sure our programmes are sustainable, " Edwards explained.

"During the World Cup campaign, we could have afforded to pay a bit more for coach Yorke. We know and everyone knows that during that period of final qualification sponsors are more on board. We know the culture of sponsors in T&T, it's one that we are hoping to change over the next couple of years, but the sponsors were on for the World Cup campaign so we could afford to do it.

"Ensuring that the programme was sustainable, we had discussions with coach Yorke to look at revising his salary and the salary of his coaching staff and we couldn't reach that conclusion in terms of keeping him on...We would have given him some offers, we would have countered, we would have given him some offers, and he would have countered and the numbers just weren't adding up in terms of the sustainability of the programme," the president added.

Edwards said Yorke's staff was terminated in December having been fully paid. However, he said Yorke was owed around US$158,000 by the TTFA, including salary and outstanding bonuses, which he promised would soon be settled.

MEDIOCRE GRADE

Meanwhile, Edwards rated Yorke's T&T coaching tenure as mediocre.

Asked to rate Yorke's performance as head coach during his 27 months in charge, he said: "There are different aspects that I judge individuals on, but if you compile everything, for not qualifying for the World Cup I would give him a five [out of 10].

"I feel progress was made in some areas, but in other areas I didn't think that we made much progress. There were some issues in scoring goals, and I think that's across the board, even when you look at the Under-20's and the Under-17's qualification for the World Cup as well, we're seeing that we're lacking in that area tremendously," Edwards pointed out.

"Some years ago we were lacking defensively, but I think that we shored up those positions, but a true goalscorer at all levels is something that we truly need to focus on as an FA and as coaches."

- CMC