Black Cats pair free to face Hammers

Trinidad & Tobago will not prevent Sunderland’s Carlos Edwards and Kenwyne Jones from facing West Ham this weekend.

The Blacks Cats refused to release the duo for tonight’s friendly international against Jamaica on medical grounds.

After Edwards (groin) and Jones (virus) were withdrawn, the club rejected a request from the Trinidad & Tobago Football Federation to have their conditions independently verified.

The T&TFF threatened to impose a FIFA sanction that would deny Sunderland use of the pair until five days after tonight’s clash in Kingston.

Enforcement of the ruling would have prevented them from featuring in the crucial Barclays Premier League showdown against West Ham on Saturday.

But according to FIFA vice-president and T&TFF special adviser Jack Warner, agreement was reached following intervention from Sunderland manager Roy Keane and striker Dwight Yorke.

Keane and Yorke, Trinidad & Tobago’s 2006 World Cup captain, persuaded Warner to drop the threat.

“We are putting all that behind us,” Warner told a press conference, reported in the Trinidad & Tobago Express.

“We won’t invoke the FIFA regulation.”

Sunderland sit just four points above the Premiership relegation zone, with seven game remaining.