Thursday, March 23 2006

FANS of the Trinidad and Tobago football team throughout the world will now have the chance to purchase Soca Warriors replica items on the worldwide web.

Global online marketplace, eBay, is now an official partner of the Soca Warriors. The partnership between eBay and the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation was sealed recently in Zurich, Switzerland.

“We are thrilled with the partnership between e-Bay and the Trinidad and Tobago national football squad. The Soca Warriors play a relaxed, highly artistic game and are more cheerful while they’re at it than any other team. That fits perfectly with eBay,” said Gautam Thakar, Country Manager, e-Bay India Marketplace.

Special Advisor to the TTFF Jack Warner, General-Secretary Richard Groden and marketing representative Cheryl Abrams met with eBay officials last week in Zurich.

“We are truly delighted to have finalised this deal with a major global marketing company. This will allow our brand to be on show throughout the world and it could not have come at a better time as we approach the World Cup,” Warner said.

“And I can tell you there will be more deals like this to come. Mark my words that the Soca Warriors of Trinidad and Tobago will be no strangers to the world,” he added.

With a host of exciting Soca Warriors events and attractions planned to mobilise its global community of 181 million members, eBay is hoping to make Trinidad and Tobago, led by national team Coach Leo Beenhakker, the most supported team in the 2006 Finals.

Trinidad and Tobago will let fans get closer than virtually any other squad and, to make sure as many as possible get to see the FIFA World Cup newcomers firsthand, eBay is organising a host of events before, during and after the competition.

These include meet and greet sessions with the football stars, jersey advertising and a set of exciting opportunities for the eBay community to get behind the Soca Warriors whose Adidas official World Cup shirts will be on sale locally from early April .

The Adidas shirts being advertised for sale on fifaworldcup.com and Eurosport websites are not the actual TT World Cup shirts.

In related news, the TTFF have reacted to a report which appeared this week in the Leeds Today newspaper stating that the local governing body had chosen two Leeds musicians to produce and sing their official World Cup song.

The report stated that Paul Jepson and Choque Hosein, who live a few doors away from each other in Farsley, reinvented themselves as the TNT Socaboys to pen “Soca Warriors”.

However the TTFF said yesterday that there has been contact between the two parties, but there has been no formal agreement or go ahead for the Leeds duo to produce the official World Cup song.