TTFA appoints King as senior team head coach

WALTER ALIBEY

Senior Multimedia Reporter

[email protected]

Derek King has been appointed coach of the T&T senior men’s team on a full-time basis. Mere months after being the interim replacement for former coach Dwight Yorke, who to parted ways with the T&T Football Association following a disastrous World Cup qualifying campaign, the Technical Committee finally made it official.

A release from the parent T&TFA revealed that King was given a one-year contract in the first instance, with an option for renewal.

King, in an immediate response, said, “It is an honour to lead the T&T Men’s National Team. Together with the players and staff, we will work to build a clear identity, compete at the highest level and make the nation proud. I fully understand the responsibility that comes with representing our country, and I embrace that challenge with focus and determination.”

“My commitment is to build a disciplined, hard-working and competitive team. We will demand high standards, accountability and professionalism at every level, both on and off the field. Our objective is simple: to compete, to improve and to make the people of T&T proud. We will work tirelessly to ensure that every time we step onto the field, we represent the passion and spirit of our nation.”

King, 46, has not only won domestic Professional League titles with Joe Public and North East Stars but also captured the 2014 Caribbean Men’s Under-20 title as head coach of T&T. A former national youth and senior team defender whose career ended at age 24 due to injury, played 33 times and scored one goal for the senior team, before he tasted early success in his managerial career when he won the T&T Pro League with Joe Public in 2009/10.

Soon after, he served as assistant coach to Stephen Hart (2013-2016), under whom T&T reached consecutive Gold Cup quarter-finals in 2013 and 2015, while also attaining a FIFA ranking of 49. Following Hart’s departure from the T&T senior team after being fired by now-deceased former TTFA president David John Williams, King guided North East Stars to the TT Pro League in 2016-2017 and, at the time, became one of only two coaches to win the domestic competition with two teams.

Next, King took over the reins at T&T Super League club FC Santa Rosa and led The Canons to that competition’s title in 2017-18. King, a native Arima, and who served as an assistant to former senior men’s head coach Angus Eve, also followed Hart to Canadian Premier League club Halifax Wanderers, serving as assistant coach for three years.

At the national team level, King oversaw T&T’s senior team preparations as interim coach for the CONCACAF Nations League matches against Honduras and French Guiana in September 2024, before Yorke was hired on November 1 of that year to guide T&T back to the World Cup.