BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

Trinidad & Tobago's football supremo Austin 'Jack' Warner has warned national players involved in a legal dispute with the local federation that they will remain in the football wilderness unless they return to the bargaining table.

The cream of the T&T's Soca Warriors, including all of the overseas-based players, have taken legal action against the T&T Football Federation over incentive payments they claim were promised them for their participation in the FIFA World Cup in Germany last year.

"They (the players demands) are not justified and worse yet, even if they are remotely justified, what you have to do is to sit down around a table and talk," Warner told CMC Sports while in New York recently.

"Don't, of course, go to lawyer and court and so on. The minute you do that, then you have put a bar on all discussion and that's where we are at the moment, and until they decide that they will drop all court action and come back to the table to talk, they will stay outside the pail of organised football.

"Even if it means that in the initial phase, football has to suffer to get better again. It's unfortunate but that's what happens when players are consumed by greed."

The dispute, which has marred the country's historic outing at the World Cup, resulted in the dissenting players being ruled out of the ongoing CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States.