As I said to the editor in the hope of addressing our football problem, “we are not here for a reprisal on past decisions but to actually come to the face of our condition and ask who do we want to be, what do we want to look like?”
To quote from Dr David Martin’s opening remarks to the EU Parliament, on Covid-19, March 28, 2023: “I see it as one of the greatest opportunities that faces us today because we had a public conversation front and centre in people’s minds. When it was an esoteric conversation, nobody cared. But when it came home, then, it became something of resounding interest.” Well, TTFA, it has come home!
I make the categorical statement that football in T&T is in dire straits because of the TTFA’s failure to welcome, create, and manage change. The truth is we have long had blind spots and problems of near-sightedness as it relates to change. So, this conversation is directed to all stakeholders throughout our 8 counties and 41 constituencies, and to address why we are where we are today and what it would take to put us back at the top of four or five in CONCACAF.
Going back to the 1960s and 70s, we failed to see the new changes eddying around us while a few CONCACAF countries didn’t fail. And when failure occurs, “when organisations or nations fail or succeed, the leadership is the reason.” Yet today, the questions still beg: Why are we where we are? How outrageous it is that the TTFA continues to remain a net negative producing entity? Decades have gone by with productivity periodically plateauing at best. The players are not to blame. Neither are the coaches. Indeed, we are at a juncture of pivotal change, and we must do an immediate job to “Japanise” our efforts and clone CONCACAF’s frontrunners’ schema.
Failure to act immediately super-sizes the negativity toward the country, families, schools, local communities, and social and cultural lives. We are urgently called upon to round up the posses, especially given the deep-rootedness of the “what’s in it for me” mentality that has found its way into our nation’s fabric.
When things were more equal
Looking back several decades, we see coaches and players at the highest club levels in T&T were able to run neck-and-neck with every CONCACAF country. For-instance, in 1973 T&T trounced Mexico 4-0 in the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifier which saw Haiti being our sole World Cup representative. Yes, Haiti and it should have been us, T&T! Later, in 1978 and 1985 the Defence Force won the CONCACAF Champions Club Cup. So, what happened that changed the “more equal” status? Simple, in those times, the governing Associations failed to handle their duties to recognise and cope with their evolving circumstances.
Though not alone, the TTFA failed to respond to the changing climate. Some 95% (39 of 41) CONCACAF countries, that includes Canada in the north to Suriname in the south, back in our “more equal” days were run by a set of virtual or part-time officials. The 5%, Mexico and USA, were the more administratively sound “Big Fish”. Today, 38-plus years later, another 5%, two-to-three more countries, Costa Rica, and maybe Honduras, Panama and Canada join the ranks. These countries’ full-time administrators have set new standards and expectations across all stakeholder fronts.
Attitudes between leaders and stakeholders complemented one another and are today being sustained by resounding trust-reciprocity interlinking, while nurturing support for the greater-good goal. As for T&T today, we are paying the price for our lethargy and droopiness. So here, I lay the following cliché for us as we make new plans for our return to CONCACAF’s top tier: “Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.”
Which are we? What is in our think-tank?
The future is bright
I say that never have the most important ingredients been more in place for our football and country than now. We have the resurgence of player and coaching talent and the entire country awaits the call to pile on the support. One caveat may be sadly standing in the way - the ongoing trials of the TTFA, with its Normalisation Committee. But bright is the future because of the size and quality of the talent pool that is at the Under-14, U-17, and U-20 levels. I have witnessed this talent over the past November-December months, and we will be called “fools” if we fail to harness this crop of student-athletes. We will be shooting ourselves in the foot.
Cheap things no good
To harness the abundant talent, we must swiftly act on the only solution left and that is to hire full-time, qualified business minds to lead this urgent and important recovery charge. These new hires would make decisive their action.
Awareness of regional undertakings and progress will be instrumental to T&T’s new action plan. They will employ the push-pull instrument, where “nursery-bed” leagues “push” toward the outstretched hands of the “pulling” senior teams. And though smaller nations tend to have good short-term runs only to slip back faster than it took them to rise, I am adamant that with the right hires we will establish long-term viability in the top tier of CONCACAF. Remaining at the top will be the test of our resolve and focus. God forbid if we fail for there will be a splintering and all shall be lost again, this time, to the permanent clutches of the evil-enticing worlds of social media, corruption, and crime.
Be the rising tide
Again, “no more esoteric conversations” for the TTFA and its stakeholders! Your mantra must be “the rising tide that lifts all boats”! Bring in the “elders”, address the uneven tide problem that our football, sport, and country have been grappling with for decades. There’s the new birthing of talent and emerging “fire-in-the-belly” mindset. With this, there’s hope. Though we faltered in our response to the call for change, and “the horse bolted,” I charge that the barn door is not fully shut.
The positive impact of music and the fine arts on one’s culture can aid sporting success. And the ripple effect will be manifested by the subsidence of crime and lawlessness, the resurgence of good grades and school attendance, respect for property and authority, love for life and people, pride in our country, and much more.
Talk about being the rising tide! Tell me, which boat won’t be lifted?
A picture paints 1,000 words TTFA
The aphorism, “a picture paints a thousand words,” is used to help people looking for answers. Surely, the TTFA administrators will be looking to recover and forge sustainable answers!
The three-tables picture presented below showing the results of every team in CONCACAF for the Under16/Under-17, Under-20, and Olympics teams, and a narrative for senior men’s World Cup teams confirm that we are in a major crisis. They are presented to help the TTFA visualise the rising tide effect that they are to have for our football fraternity – just as the “Big Fish” have done. And while the pictures speak truth, we are still a developing nation with severe financial constraints. The T&T player and coaching talent pool has resurged and shows top-end qualities. I have seen this in the many college games I recently watched, along with a string of valiant performances and results by our relatively young national team. So, to the leadership, I ask you to visualise all the pictures and consider that over the last 20 years we have become stale, and we are now at the juncture where we do not need more talk, but strong, smart, passionate loyalists who will coalesce, study, design, adopt, and be firmly faithful to a holistic development plan and programme.
Clearly the tables show that the countries which have spent precious resources and time focusing on the development of their “basement” or nursery-bed leagues and junior club teams, are the winners. Take a good look at each table! See the trends! I attribute their success to their futuristic thinking, raising all boats mindset, and superior management of their football programmes.
The youth and elderly spectrum
In closing, my appeal to the TTFA and Normalisation Committee begins with - Animis Opibusque Parati – be “Prepared in Mind and Resources”. And second - Dum Spiro Spero - “Whilst I breathe, I hope, whilst I hope I live”. In essence, it speaks to the warrior within, i.e., “those who refuse to quit until the very last breath.”
Leaders, pursue our YOUTH, for, therein lies a productive future, all through the vehicles of sport, and the arts. Positives beget positives, thereby impacting the education and family support systems, respect for one another, and a love for God. Let the “born-again” experience invigorate our spirits and sharpen our focus. And, never are we to forget to visit the ELDERLY, as with reviewing the “black box” for “cockpit” conversations and “flight data” information. Put the pieces together and reconstruct the new football engine for the journey ahead. Consider all types of locks and dams to ensure that all boats will be lifted equally and equitably. The youth and elderly are the feet on which the TTFA walks! They are the platforms from which ideas are launched and soar! Oh, how I forever remember a T&T where, “Together we aspire, together we achieve”!
—Hannibal Najjar is a former Trinidad and Tobago youth team coach
SOURCE: T&T Express