I'VE looked at the administrative and performance issues of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) that have come to my attention through the media since the Germany World Cup where T& T qualified as finalists in 2006. From then to now it seems to be an endless cycle of controversial and contestable issues, lawsuits, claims, accusations of bias and highhandedness, awards to consultants, coaches and officials of all sorts.
There have been issues surrounding breaches of contract, default, performance negligence, you name it. It seems the TTFA contracts and then changes its intentions, goes into agreements and has no contingencies for relief or even escape, when administrators change their minds run into unanticipated obstacles.
This has been the backdrop and landscape for football administration in the country. There is never money to do what needs to be done; and with the money that becomes available, there is little accountability or transparency.
Now we hear FIFA is fed up and is using its veto power, so to speak, to wrest control from the TTFA. Lo and behold, everyone is shocked and outraged as to why this is happening, and questioning whether FIFA has the right. Just the posing of this question, in my mind, is proof enough of the validity for the said action.
If, after all that has transpired over the years, you cannot see why there is opposition by FIFA, then it means we actually lacked the understanding, ethics decency that would have warranted us taking on the job of managing the association in the first place. Everyone can see the TTFA has done a bad job so far.
Now it's about saving the reputation of football administration in T&T, and who best to do so than the global association?
Granted, FIFA has come under question the past. But, having done its own housekeeping, isn't it reasonable that FIFA now extends it to subordinate associations as well? There is a side wind blowing; the story that it's a case of one old T& T administration trying to undermine the new one. As true as that may be, it does not mitigate the fact that the time has come for radical action, and the incidence of whichever administration is in power does not remove this need for change.
Too bad it had to happen at this time of administrative change.
Come on, guys, whether it was on your watch or not, a lot has transpired and it's no good continuing to flog a dead horse, pretending there is no problem.
It's the 21st century. Financial integrity and reporting standards govern how things are done. Give the global boss and custodian of the sport a chance to do what it can at this dark hour and please step aside.
Don't drag T&T down to a dogfight for a supremacy we hardly have earned over the years, and very probably no longer deserve.
John Thompson
St James
SOURCE: T&T Express