Trinidad: Former TTFA President and PoS Mayor Raymond Tim Kee has died

Raymond Tim Kee

(Trinidad Guardian) The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion ex­tends deep­est con­do­lences and sym­pa­thy to the fam­i­ly of our for­mer Pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee fol­low­ing his pass­ing on Sat­ur­day night at his home in Port-of-Spain.

Ray­mond, who cel­e­brat­ed his 71st birth­day in Ju­ly, was kind­heart­ed, de­vot­ed and com­mit­ted to serv­ing his coun­try the best way he could. His com­mit­ment, in­tel­lect, sense of hu­mour but above all the sim­ple and straight­for­ward man­ner of re­lat­ing to all of us will be a les­son al­ways on mod­esty and hu­mil­i­ty.

 
In all sit­u­a­tions—whether on the pub­lic stage or away from the cam­eras—Ray­mond’s pas­sion for life and sport, more so foot­ball and his deep de­sire for a bet­ter world shone through. Ray­mond was known through­out lo­cal are­nas not just for his in­spi­ra­tional elo­quence but for his hu­man warmth, who showed the skills of lead­er­ship and great de­ter­mi­na­tion.

His charis­ma was re­mark­able and there is no doubt but he was a for­ma­tive in­flu­ence on those around him. He al­ways iden­ti­fied with those who were less for­tu­nate, or those ex­pe­ri­enc­ing hard­ship, no mat­ter where they came from—and he trans­lat­ed this in­to a force­ful ar­tic­u­la­tion of the need for those with pow­er to do more. He was an ef­fi­cient and com­pe­tent cor­po­rate man. He was a true War­rior.

De­spite their grief and pain, we hope that Ray­mond’s fam­i­ly and friends can see that his work has not end­ed with his pass­ing—but that in­stead, that his spir­it will live on in the dai­ly acts of those whose lives he touched.

TTFA Pres­i­dent William Wal­lace salut­ed the for­mer Pres­i­dent, say­ing “It is with great emo­tion and deep sad­ness that I learnt about his death ear­ly this morn­ing. I salute the mem­o­ry of an ex­cep­tion­al man who I knew as a voice of rea­son. Ray­mond was an ex­cel­lent en­tre­pre­neur, friend and fam­i­ly man. His pass­ing leaves a big void in our hearts. My heart­felt sym­pa­thy con­do­lences to his en­tire fam­i­ly.”

Tim Kee was elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion in No­vem­ber 2012 and served un­til No­vem­ber 2015. Un­der his reign, the T&T Men’s Se­nior Team qual­i­fied for two CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup quar­ter-fi­nals in 2013 and 2015 and fin­ished sec­ond in two Caribbean Cup Fi­nals, al­so ad­vanc­ing to the Hexag­o­nal Fi­nal Round of 2018 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing The Se­nior Women’s Team al­so ad­vanced to with­in one point of 2015 World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion, be­com­ing cham­pi­ons of the Caribbean in 2014. Mr Tim Kee served on the FI­FA Fut­sal com­mit­tee dur­ing his tenure as Pres­i­dent of the TTFA.

In Au­gust 2015, Tim Kee stat­ed, “En­list­ing sup­port for our na­tion­al foot­ballers is how I will be fo­cus­ing my time, en­er­gy, and ef­forts, es­pe­cial­ly as we en­ter our Road To Rus­sia Cam­paign. Now is the time to show our foot­ballers and coach­es the same lev­el of com­mit­ment and team­work they re­cent­ly dis­played on the field at the Gold Cup. Now is the time we must give our un­di­vid­ed and un­equiv­o­cal sup­port. Our foot­ballers have earned that re­spect.”