Four months after the nation became captivated by the skill, perseverance and warrior spirit of a group of national footballers that came within a goal of qualifying for a World Cup, all seems to be lost.
Since losing 1-0 to Ecuador in the first-ever sold-out women’s match on home soil on December 2 last year, the national women’s team has not kicked a ball.
Like a wave that swells with increasing energy before cascading powerfully on the shore and then retreating quietly back to the ocean, so too TT women’s football — after the wave of excitement that gripped the nation in 2014 — has receded into irrelevance and into a sea of empty promises.
National men’s coach Stephen Hart recently lamented that his players had been inactive since losing the Caribbean Cup final to Jamaica on November 18 last year. He finally got the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) to organise a friendly against Panama last Friday.
The TT women are still waiting.
Their captain Maylee Attin Johnson, seething with frustration, lashed out at the administrators of the local game yesterday in a post on social networking site Facebook.
“Everywhere I go people ask me, ‘when are you all starting back training’ and my reply every time is ‘good question’. Epic failure by the TTFA. Donkey of the year goes to the TTFA. Don’t need to kick another ball for TT under these people. Every time they treat the women’s team like s...t I’ll speak up about it and I mean EVERY TIME,” she wrote.
Speaking to Newsday yesterday, Maylee, itching to build on the momentum of their 2015 World Cup campaign, said she is fed up of the lip service.
“I’ve seen that movie already. They’re good at that. They’re good at selling ice to the Eskimos and telling you what you like to hear. But this Eskimo is not buying anything you selling. They’re good at destroying talent. They’re good at that and it’s not much to say again. The more you talk is the less they do so it’s not much I can say,” she fumed.
Maylee, 28 years old, admitted she is contemplating quitting the game but says she wants to do it on her own terms.
“Without a doubt you always think about it but you can’t really allow them to dictate when you retire from it. As frustrating as it is, you would like to have a good communication with them,” she said.
Maylee’s Facebook post yesterday got over 180 likes with many commending her for her willingness to defend the rights of women footballers to be treated with the respect they deserve.
One Facebook user stated, “Nothing new...It’s things like this that discourage players to continue playing.”