Dear Editor
As a proud Trinbagonian and equally proud product and former servant of football, I feel a profound sense of hurt and embarrassment by the extremely sad current state of affairs of the game in my homeland. This stems from the fact that we are being portrayed before the world and therefore, being perceived, as a people who are incapable of running our own football affairs both on and off the field.
Consequently, the door was being left wide open for not only the Terry Fenwicks and Peter Millers of the world to waltz right in, but more disturbingly, for FIFA to impose themselves upon us.
Based on reports, it seemed that Wallace and the United TTFA clearly lacked the football business acumen at the level required to deal with Fenwick and Company. So, what made them even entertain the thought that they would have been able to successfully rage a war against FIFA, the most powerful sport administration body in the world? Unfortunately, Wallace and the United TTFA, without very careful thought it appears, but seemingly overexcited about the prospects, bought into an ill-advised course of action to take on FIFA in a war that they never had a chance of winning.
Perhaps it was driven by over-inflated egos and “chest-beating” agendas? Apparently, because of their lack of the required expertise and know-how, Wallace and his United TTFA bought into what others were selling, as against being able to chart his and by extension the United TTFA’s own course, by getting down into the football trenches to do the extremely challenging work that is necessary to finally create the environment whereby local players, male and female from youth to senior level, who are the primary assets; I repeat, who are the primary assets of the Football Association, will be given the best opportunity to flourish and so too the local game?
So, while entering full of promise and promises, with the hopes of our football nation riding on said promises, Wallace and his United TTFA appears to have totally blown the opportunity to succeed, where all previous administrations have failed. And in the end, as history would attest, it is the players and by extension the local game that will continue to suffer; only this time around, with potentially more devastating effect than ever before.
Alison C. Ayres / New York USA
Retired Football Marketing & Management Professional