United TTFA: 13 matches without a win

UNIT­ED TTFA STATEMENT

The state­ment reads, "Unit­ed TTFA is alarmed at the home de­feat of the So­ca War­riors by Hon­duras last night, which con­demned our se­nior men's na­tion­al team to its longest ever run with­out a win since Trinidad and To­ba­go joined FI­FA in 1962 - an un­prece­dent­ed thir­teen match­es.

More­over, the loss forces our team to the bot­tom of the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League group stand­ings and vir­tu­al­ly elim­i­nates our coun­try's chances of se­cur­ing an au­to­mat­ic berth to ei­ther the World Cup or Gold Cup. Sad­ly, our team is head­ed in­to the sec­ond di­vi­sion of the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League.

With­in the same week, Trinidad and To­ba­go's se­nior women's na­tion­al team fin­ished sec­ond to last in its Caribbean Olympic qual­i­fy­ing group and was elim­i­nat­ed from that CON­CA­CAF tour­na­ment. Mere­ly four years ago that team chal­lenged Ecuador for a place in the Women's World Cup.

Unit­ed TTFA sees the im­me­di­ate ill for­tune of these two na­tion­al teams as em­blem­at­ic of the on­go­ing col­lapse of TTFA's na­tion­al teams' pro­gramme un­der the David John-Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion. Since com­ing to pow­er in 2015, the David John-Williams has presided over the alarm­ing de­struc­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go's once un­ri­valled dom­i­na­tion of Caribbean foot­ball, and the loss of its hard-won sta­tus as a mem­ber of CON­CA­CAF's elite.

This cat­a­stroph­ic de­cline is ev­i­dent in all of our na­tion­al teams, ir­re­spec­tive of age group or gen­der. The ab­sence of fans from na­tion­al team match­es is an in­creas­ing­ly des­per­ate protest, even from loy­al sup­port­ers, against our in­creas­ing­ly abysmal per­for­mance in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na.

Unit­ed TTFA re­jects the stan­dard ex­cus­es be­ing of­fered by the TTFA Pres­i­dent and na­tion­al team coach­es in de­fence of their dis­mal record. Fail­ure is now be­ing cam­ou­flaged by talk of "de­vel­op­ment".

Unit­ed TTFA be­lieves the ex­pla­na­tion for our dra­mat­ic fall from grace is that un­der David John-Williams the se­lec­tion and con­tract­ing of na­tion­al coach­es have be­come in­creas­ing­ly ar­bi­trary and non-trans­par­ent; the op­er­a­tion of na­tion­al coach­es and na­tion­al teams has be­come un­teth­ered from any form of tech­ni­cal su­per­vi­sion and ac­count­abil­i­ty; and the se­lec­tion of play­ers has be­come in­creas­ing­ly hap­haz­ard and nar­row.

Unit­ed TTFA al­so be­lieves, how­ev­er, that de­liv­er­ance is on the hori­zon - the TTFA elec­tion of 24 No­vem­ber.

Unit­ed TTFA has a vi­sion, sup­port­ed by a plan, for the restora­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go's for­tunes and sta­tus on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. This will re­quire time and in­vest­ment but Unit­ed TTFA pledges to achieve this wor­thy ob­jec­tive. We call on all foot­ball lovers, and all of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to be of stout heart. De­liv­er­ance is close to hand."

The state­ment was sub­mit­ted on be­half of:

An­tho­ny Har­ford (North Zone)

Kei­th Look Loy (Su­per League)

Sam Phillip (Foot­ball sup­port­er)

Clynt Tay­lor (Cen­tral Zone)

William Wal­lace (Secondary Schools - SS­FL)

Su­san War­rick (Women's Foot­ball)