I wrote a sort of article/opinion piece a week ago and submitted it to a journalist with a well-known media outlet in T&T. I did so under my real name as related to my Caribbean football site with a preface explaining my relation to the game in the region -- it appears it was not published, so I thought I'd share it here
Time for the CFU to Grow Some Teeth and Support Ousted TTFA
The date was 13 November 2016, 8:46 PM in Chicago, 10:46 PM in Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti had just beaten St. Kitts and Nevis 2-0 in CFU Caribbean Cup qualification. The match had finished 0-0 in at the end of normal time, but due to tournament rules stating that there would be no matches could end in a draw, Haiti scored twice in extra time, aided by a red card to their opponents for a moment of absolute madness. This result left Haiti second in Group 2 of Round 3 of the qualifying competition, with the three best runners up from the four, three-team groups in this round qualifying for a “5th Place Playoff.” The result left Haiti level with Antigua and Barbuda in their respective groups, each in second place with three points, a goal difference of minus one, Haiti appearing to be occupying the final playoff spot with four goals scored to Antigua’s two.
Very quickly, however, a question arose about which side should go through – Haiti claiming they should go through by virtue of goals scored, Antigua and Barbuda saying that Haiti’s three points, coming after what normally would have been a 0-0 draw, should have seen the Benna Boys go through. Messages from people within each country’s Football Association showed that neither was clear about the competition rules or which country should go through. Messages to organizers at the Caribbean Football Union quickly revealed that no one within the organization was certain of which side should go through. After days of well-publicized confusion, CFU referred the matter to CONCACAF, who ultimately decided that Haiti would go through. The most damning aspect of the whole affair was that the CFU had clearly not learned their lesson from the globally-infamous, farcical match between Grenada and Barbados at the same tournament in 1994 -- video of which has been viewed over two million times on YouTube – the CFU being fortunate that the exact situation did not reoccur in 2016 had a team needed to extend play beyond 90 minutes for any reason.
CONCACAF’s reaction to the absurdity was swift -- though there is evidence their subsequent actions were already planned. In March 2017, they opened an office in Jamaica and quickly took control of all of the region’s competitions. Gone were the CFU Caribbean Cup and CFU Club Championship, to be replaced by the CONCACAF-backed Nations League, Caribbean Club Championship, and Caribbean Shield. After this power move, the Caribbean Football Union, for all intents and purposes, faded to oblivion.
The merits of CONCACAF’s complete takeover of football in the region are debatable. Without question, the CFU following the 2011 corruption scandal, was at a low ebb. After a landmark partnership with Digicel for the 2006-2010 Caribbean Championships/Caribbean Cups which saw massive local promotion of the tournament, as well as highlights packages and live matches broadcast around the world, subsequent tournaments were poorly covered both locally and internationally and, as demonstrated, poorly organized. With the region’s hegemon, Jack Warner, removed from power, along with his acolytes throughout FAs in the region, a relative power vacuum saw the region begin to drift listlessly. Without doubt, many would point out that CONCACAF’s Nations League has been a positive move for football in the Caribbean, with 100% participation from all member FAs a big improvement on past tournaments, when many national teams often went years without playing so much as an international friendly.
While the Nations League has been an improvement, at least on the pitch, fundamental problems persist throughout the Caribbean. On a personal level, I have been very vocal in my criticisms of top-level football governance, with a few notable exceptions who I would not want to tar with this broad brush, of FAs across the Caribbean. (I must categorically state that this is not a criticism of the people working, often in volunteer roles, in the everyday operations of FAs and football in the region). To lay bare here the laundry list of fundamental ways that the game across the region must be handled more professionally in order to progress would be unproductive and would likely require another lengthy article. Progress on basic aspects of the game is well within reach for many FAs – indeed, it has already been seen in some corners -- and in many cases would not be very difficult to attain, but to do so would require upsetting the status quo, which many are not willing to do. It is my belief that, if the region, or even an individual FA, is to make any positive strides forward, it must do so under its own impetus.
As such, until Tuesday, my biggest criticisms of the past two Concacaf regimes in relation to Caribbean football, would have been their general apathy toward promoting the game in region. This was perhaps best-evidenced at the Caribbean Shield competition, a second-tier international club tournament featuring the non-professional domestic clubs in the region. For the last two editions of the Shield, Concacaf has featured little-to-zero coverage on their website in terms of match reports or match data, and what little there has been has been rife with errors, such as incorrect results or players being given as playing for the wrong team. Media coverage such as live streaming of matches or even live updates from matches has been non-existent from Concacaf, despite the fact that at least one broadcaster confirmed that they had offered to stream these matches. For these players, the amateur and semi-professionals who are in the most dire need of exposure, the Shield has been a major failure on Concacaf’s part. Even on the most-laudable aspects of Concacaf’s changes, there was cause for eye-rolling, such as when the ignorant commentators on the Nations League broadcasts would, amongst other basic errors, mispronounce the names of the teams playing (e.g. “an-geel-lah”, “ant-teeg-gwah and bar-boo-dah”, “gwah-duh-loo-pay”, “duh-min-ick-cah”, etc.). These sorts of issues -- which now pervade Concacaf’s coverage of the game in the region, yet had been rendered largely non-existent in Caribbean football until the aforementioned 2011 corruption scandal occurred -- could perhaps have been written off as pedantic or punctilious given other far larger positive strides, such as the aforementioned Nations League.
This all changed on Tuesday with FIFA’s announcement that, in conjunction with Concacaf, the new, William Wallace-led TTFA executive had been ousted in favor of a FIFA-selected normalisation committee. In general, I am not against FIFA’s intervention in the region. In fact, I welcomed their decision to intervene against the deeply corrupt, Osiris Guzman-run FA in the Dominican Republic in 2018 with open arms. However, the blatant imperialistic overtones and clearly unethical aspects of this decision against the TTFA were laid bare in the media almost immediately and do not bear repeating here. The most galling aspect of this decision was that the William Wallace-led TTFA, after only three months, had been a bright spot in Caribbean football, namely with their push for the transparency and accountability that have been so badly lacking in both Trinidad and Tobago as well as most other FAs across the region. Another clear difference between this case and the aforementioned Dominican Republic case, was the massive difference in local public opinion about the respective FAs. As someone who had already become disillusioned with the poor governance of the game in the region, for this decision to be taken against a new FA that was taking positive, almost unheard of, steps towards progress was unconscionable.
It is with the above in mind that I would call on the 30 remaining member FAs of the Caribbean Football Union to unite behind the ousted TTFA administration as they take their case against FIFA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Without question, I would understand that there might be hesitancy from individual FAs to “upset the apple cart” in view of their own interests in relation to Concacaf and FIFA. To be one of the possibly-few to stick their head above the parapet would be a risk that I have no doubt many, all being well, would rather not make. With that in mind, a strong, reunited CFU would leave the organization with 31 Concacaf members – a large majority in the region – and 25 FIFA members, which would be a force to be reckoned with as far as the global governing body is concerned. If the CFU were successful with such an action, it could then begin to chart their own course forward without fear of bullying from their “big brothers” at Concacaf and FIFA – and would also help protect themselves from similar action in the future. For the sake of football in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the Caribbean as a whole, I hope the CFU will do so.