Yorke’s TTFA contract terminated

Dwight Yorke's tenure as Trinidad and To­ba­go se­nior men's foot­ball head coach has come to an end. This was con­firmed via a Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day af­ter­noon, which stat­ed that Yorke's con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed by mu­tu­al agree­ment af­ter dis­cus­sions were held be­tween the TTFA and Yorke re­gard­ing the fu­ture of the role, in­clud­ing re­vised con­trac­tu­al terms and re­mu­ner­a­tion aligned to the next phase of the pro­gramme. .

How­ev­er, the TTFA's con­fir­ma­tion fol­lows Yorke's own res­ig­na­tion state­ment which he put out ear­li­er on Thurs­day via per­son­al as­sis­tant Marie Priest­ly.

Yorke stat­ed, "It is with a heavy heart that I have made the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion to step down from my role with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Team. Serv­ing as head coach of the Se­nior Men’s Na­tion­al Team has been an ho­n­our and a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty I have car­ried with im­mense pride. Rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go at the high­est lev­el of the game is a priv­i­lege that very few ex­pe­ri­ence, and I re­main grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty."

Yorke's de­ci­sion to back away from the team comes three months af­ter T&T's 2026 World Cup cam­paign end­ed, with the So­ca War­riors un­able to book a place at the show­piece in the USA, Cana­da and Mex­i­co and the man who took T&T to the World Cup in Ger­many in 2006 ex­pressed his re­gret.

"From the mo­ment I took charge in No­vem­ber 2024, my fo­cus has been on build­ing some­thing mean­ing­ful—cre­at­ing a strong struc­ture, help­ing play­ers grow in­di­vid­u­al­ly, strength­en­ing us as a team, and rein­vig­o­rat­ing our fan base with con­sis­tent per­for­mances. I re­main con­fi­dent in the work that was un­der­tak­en, the stan­dards that were es­tab­lished, and the foun­da­tion that con­tin­ues to be built for the fu­ture of the Na­tion­al Team.

Progress in in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball re­quires sta­bil­i­ty, struc­ture, and sus­tained in­vest­ment, and I firm­ly be­lieve that the play­ers demon­strat­ed the com­mit­ment and po­ten­tial nec­es­sary to move the pro­gramme for­ward."

Grouped with Cu­ra­cao, Ja­maica and Bermu­da, the So­ca War­riors fin­ished third in group B and out­side of the au­to­mat­ic berth grant­ed to each of the three group win­ners, while al­so miss­ing out on a po­ten­tial route to the World Cup via the in­ter-con­fed­er­a­tion play­off.

The TTFA's me­dia re­lease stat­ed that it was af­ter as­sess­ment of this out­come that the de­ci­sion was made to end Yorke's con­tract.

That state­ment read, "Fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the re­cent FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion cam­paign, the TTFA Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee con­duct­ed a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the cam­paign and the over­all di­rec­tion of the Men’s Se­nior Na­tion­al Team pro­gramme, in­clu­sive of its tech­ni­cal struc­ture and fi­nan­cial frame­work. Fol­low­ing these dis­cus­sions, both par­ties were un­able to reach agree­ment on the pro­posed terms at this time, and it was mu­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed to part ways."

Yorke said, "I had every in­ten­tion of con­tin­u­ing that jour­ney. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, cir­cum­stances be­yond my con­trol have made that im­pos­si­ble. I want to pay spe­cial trib­ute to the play­ers. Their com­mit­ment, re­silience, will­ing­ness to work hard and pride in rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go were ev­i­dent every sin­gle day. They gave every­thing in pur­suit of reach­ing a first World Cup fi­nals in 20 years, and they should be im­mense­ly proud of their ef­forts.

To the sup­port­ers, thank you for your pas­sion and be­lief—it nev­er went un­no­ticed. And to the As­so­ci­a­tion, I am grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead this team."

Ac­cord­ing to the TTFA, its de­ci­sion to part ways with Yorke re­flects the out­come of those dis­cus­sions at this junc­ture and wished to em­pha­sise that the as­so­ci­a­tion main­tains a pro­fes­sion­al and re­spect­ful re­la­tion­ship with Yorke, and the door is not closed to fu­ture di­a­logue.

The TTFA me­dia re­lease added that in the in­ter­im, the ap­point­ment of a head coach to lead the team in prepa­ra­tion for the up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly against Bo­livia on March 15, as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion in the up­com­ing FI­FA Se­ries to be held in Uzbek­istan, will be an­nounced.