TTFA denies muzzling fans on social media

The TT Football Association (TTFA) has denied silencing fans on Facebook by not allowing comments on specific posts about the national men's team.

Facebook comments under two posts dated August 4 and 6 – which revealed Derek King as the caretaker coach of the Soca Warriors and Randolph Boyce as the men's Under-20 head coach – have been taken off.

Some fans on social media accused the TTFA of muzzling fans who may disagree with decisions by the new Kieron Edwards-led TTFA. One of the first major decisions of the new executive was the sacking of men's coach Angus Eve.

In an interview on August 9, TTFA director of communications media Shaun Fuentes said the limiting and/or prohibiting of comments was to prevent hate speech and racially directed comments.

He said the media team had removed comments for not only the aforementioned posts but others in the past.

"Rather than having to delete the posts, we rather just take the comments off."

Fuentes said racist comments have not only been directed at coaches, but "the players, performances of national teams and the TTFA etcetera."

When Newsday asked Fuentes if "hate speech and racially directed comments" were the main reason for the August 4 and 6 posts comments being taken off, he said, "I have to check back and see if it was actually taken off for those.

"But we have been doing that on quite a few others as well."

Around 4.30 pm on August 9, Newsday checked the TTFA's Facebook posts up to July 1, 2024 and saw just the August 4 and 6 media releases as the the only posts with the comments off.

Around 6 pm, Newsday rechecked the page and saw posts on July 17, July 22, August 4, August 5 and 8 with the comments section removed.

A release from Fifa on June 18, 2022 noted a collaboration with Fifpro to combat social media hate speech.

The release said, "Reports highlight problem of abuse on social media directed at players and coaches during international tournaments."

The release continued, Fifa and Fifpro would launch tools to better protect participants and provide educational support and mental health advice for players at future Fifa tournaments.

On June 12, 2023 Concacaf announced its disciplinary committee had sanctioned the Nicaraguan Football Federation for fielding an ineligible player in eight Nicaragua men’s national team matches, including matches in the 2022/23 Concacaf Nations League (CNL).

"The Nicaragua men’s national team will be replaced in the 2023 Gold Cup Group Stage (Group A) by the TT men’s national team, by virtue of them being the highest second-place team overall from League B groups in the 2022/23 CNL."

The TTFA's social media pages (Facebook and Instagram) were later flooded with hate speech and racist comments.

Newsday checked a TTFA's Facebook post from June 2023 captioned, "Today we face Haiti in our last training match ahead of the start of our Gold Cup 2023 on Sunday."

There were 487 comments and it was still open to the public to comment. Newsday found many comments that would be considered hate speech or racist. One post which can be considered offensive showed an image of a monkey.

Around 4.50 pm on August 9, Newsday contacted TTFA president on the new "trend" of taking off comments on posts when new coaches are revealed.

Edwards said he was unaware of this and said Newsday was "reaching."

Newsday told Edwards it was seeing a trend of comments being taken off on (the two) posts where two new coaches were revealed.

Edwards asked, "Two articles is a trend?"

The Oxford meaning of trend is: a general direction in which something is developing or changing.