John-Williams: Football in T&T needs radical changes.
By: Randy Bando (ttproleague).[/size]
W Connection President David John-Williams has expressed heavy criticism with the way Trinidad and Tobago football has evolved over the recent years.
Speaking at the TT Pro League symposium “Towards a National Philosophy for football in Trinidad and Tobago” on Sunday at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, John-Williams said that fundamental changes has to be made.
“Radical changes has to happen in Trinidad and Tobago football from a competitive nature, a technical nature, a social standpoint and we have to understand that although football has become a business, never forget the importance of winning trophies,” said the W Connection owner.
John-Williams who covered the topic “The role of football in Trinidad and Tobago” was quick to point out that hierarchy members of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation wasn’t present at the symposium geared at the betterment of local football.
He explained “When we see no hierarchy members of the federation here, it leaves a lot to be desired. I know that I’m going to be knocked for this but I have noting against the federation.”
Present members of the TTFF were Technical Director Lincoln Phillips and U-17 Head Coach Anton Corneal who both gave presentations, also present was national Senior Team Coach Wim Rijsbergen.
John-Williams explained that we are entering an era where sporting success would be measured by financial profits and to do this, he said that it is very important in T&T to continually improve competitions, to increase the interest and to provide accessibility of those competitions.
W Connection have been the most successful club thus far in Trinidad and Tobago professional football history but John-Williams says that T&T can learn a lot from the foreign Leagues on their proper structuring of competitions.
He made arguments that T&T doesn’t even have a proper published football program alerting the dates and venues of various Leagues.
“It’s not about the TT Pro League alone,” he said. “It’s not about the Super League. We have seen the Pro League taking a step in the right direction inviting Super League teams in the Toyota Classic competition but that alone is not going to help.”
He went on to demonstrate the incompetence of the TTFF and the FA Trophy title which they run.
He said, “All around the world FA competitions are for all teams. Here in T&T we have just ten teams in our professional league (TT Pro League), the top teams in the country but we are told that two teams cannot make it.”
“We are looking at Stokley Vale FC of the Zonal League making it into an FA ahead of Pro League clubs Police FC and North East Stars. Something definitely has to be wrong, so the whole football and competitiveness has to change if we want our football to go anywhere.”
Touching on the social aspect John-Williams we lacked support for our so-called most loved game both financially and socially.
“Socially we identify with the national game but not the club football, but people must understand that there is no national football without club football. We have a number of national companies but our game is not supported. We are a society that always tends to jump on board only when we are close to achieving something.”
He also made the statement that maybe there is too much controversy in T&T football and that’s why co-operate T&T is not supporting.
“Even in our finest hour we have not been able to improve our football. We have not benefited from our glory days (2006 World Cup, 2007 U-17 World Championship).”
Lastly, John Williams slapped the technical aspect of the game saying, “There is no rocket science in football.”
“Eight years from now our U-15s would be senior team players, eight years from now our U-15s would be U-23 players and we need proper development programs in place.”
He said that he is certain that our U-15s whom recently completed the CFU tournament haven’t had one training session since the tournament prompting a jolted response by national Senior Team Coach Rijsbergen who said, “It can only be done with a budget.”
John-Williams concluded that T&T was fortunate enough to be part of World Cup 2006 in Germany but failed considerably on building on that success.
