This is an absolute outrage!
After all the heartening comments about football and, more precisely, the historic qualification for the 2006 World Cup finals uniting the nation like the politicians have never been able to, we now have this shocking revelation which exposes those words for the empty rhetoric that we all suspected it to be.
By all that is considered fair and just, how can the Roy Cape All Stars be paid almost ten times more than the St James Tassa Group for their performances on the triumphant return of the national team from Bahrain?
Is this not insulting, representing as it does yet another shameless example of the marginalisation of a significant segment of the population?
How much longer will we tolerate being treated like mere brown auxiliaries before border guards are posted on the Silver Bridge and the People's Republic of Indesh is declared on the southern side?
It's a bit early in a long lead-up to Carnival, but there has been enough robber talk already to make redundant the poor fellas with the big hats trying to keep an old tradition alive.
Some may take exception to making fun of this latest episode in the perennial saga of footballing controversy, but what is the point in getting worked up about something that will blow over like Savannah dust on Ash Wednesday morning?
In fact, it has blown over already, although yesterday's Express front page headline seemed to be carrying some subliminal message about Roger Boynes' and Jack Warner's love of eggplant ("Let bygones be bygones"). No doubt, given the swift transition from vitriol to peacemaking, they would have sealed the reconciliation on Wednesday over some roast baigan, fry aloo and sada roti, while at the same time working out how the injustice to the tassa boys could be rectified.
It is indeed regrettable that Warner finds it necessary to stoop to personal attacks on the character of Lasana Liburd. However, the Express sportswriter doesn't need help from anybody to defend himself. While based in England for two years, he would have crossed paths many times with the preening prima donnas of the Premiership while sifting out stories of interest for readers back home. His work speaks for itself, as does Warner's.
Yet as much as the juicy sound bites, disdainful references and reams of facts and figures from the football supremo's lengthy salvo three days ago would have been devoured by a public weaned on a diet of bacchanal, more significant issues relating to the independence of the media may have been side-stepped.
On what grounds was Liburd, as Warner stated, "consistently refused accreditation to the World Cup qualifying matches in T&T"? Is it because, in the estimation of whoever assesses the merits of accreditation applications at the Football Federation, he is not a legitimate football reporter? Or is it because what he writes is not liked by said individual or committee?
If it is the former, then obviously the assessor knows nothing about the local media. If it is the latter, then it is a decision that reeks of shallow small-mindedness. In the event that the more vindictive option is true, then the TTFF would not be alone in such reprehensible behaviour.
A few years ago, a well-placed official in the International Cricket Council vetoed a television company's selection of two former Test players as members of a commentary panel because they were too critical of the sport's governing body.
No doubt there have been several other instances in many other sports, not that the frequency makes it any less distasteful.
And why should any journalist be cowed by veiled threats that his investigative reporting is jeopardising his parent company's acquisition of television rights for future World Cups?
They may be above the law-FIFA's statues essentially say so in that member associations cannot be taken to court on pain of suspension-but the constitution of this country still guarantees press freedom. The challenge, however, for the owners of media houses is to achieve financial prosperity without compromising journalistic principles.
Not that journalists are entirely blameless. The just-concluded holiday season saw many media practitioners drawn more readily to the sound of a cracked seal on a bottle of expensive grog than the prospect of a good story.
If the big companies didn't get the desired results from plying the hordes with liquor and food, they wouldn't keep laying it on year after year.
In this context, denying Liburd a press pass and dangling the World Cup rights for 2010 and beyond may be seen as an effective way of getting the errant individual and organisation to toe the party line.
None of this is new, of course, especially as it relates to individuals at all levels running afoul of the local football authorities. If anything, Liburd has some way to go before he can earn the status of "persona non grata" or be described as a "cancer" on the game, tags which history has shown to be no obstacle to being named national coach or captaining the national team to the World Cup finals.
In keeping with that trend, he is well on his way to a seat in the VIP box adjacent to you-know-who when Trinidad and Tobago face Sweden in Dortmund on June 10.
Hopefully, justice will be done, and they will be regaled by the tassa group as they enjoy their baigan and roti before the kick-off.