PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP):

PLAYERS FROM Trinidad's Soca Warriors, who beat the odds to make it into this year's World Cup, are threatening to retire from the national team over a payment dispute with the country's football federation.

Team captain Dwight Yorke, flanked by 12 team members, made the announcement at a press conference on Friday.

Yorke said the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation had pledged to give them additional compensation if the team played at a certain level - which Yorke said they had.

"We cannot ... see how we can build on anything if the contracts that we enter into are not worth the paper they are written on," he said.

MORTIFIED

The federation gave the players a Saturday deadline to take back their threat to quit.

"We are mortified by these developments," general secretary Richard Groden said in a statement.

Yorke retired in 2001 for similar reasons. He was persuaded to return by longtime coach Bertilole St. Claire and Tobago's Assembly leader Orville London.

The threats of mass retirement come as Warriors goalkeeper Clayton Ince began a FIFA suspension. Ince was suspended from playing for his English club Walsall for 10 days from yesterday for rejecting an international call up from Trinidad and Tobago.