WHERE­AS, The present na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body of foot­ball in Trinidad and To­ba­go as recog­nised by FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF and known as the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (T&TFF) has in­ef­fi­cient­ly, ne­glect­ful­ly, and with lit­tle to no ac­count­abil­i­ty op­er­at­ed foot­ball mat­ters in T&T,

WHERE­AS, The cur­rent state of foot­ball in T&T as in­flu­enced by the present na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body is in an un­ac­cept­able con­di­tion,

WHERE­AS, The TTFF has com­mit­ted ma­jor vi­o­la­tions of FI­FA Statutes,

WHERE­AS, The TTFF is present­ly and will be for the fore­see­able fu­ture op­er­ate at or near an in­sol­vent lev­el,

WHERE­AS, Fur­ther de­pen­dence on the present na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body will re­sult in con­tin­ued de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the con­di­tion of all as­pects of foot­ball in T&T.

THE DE­C­LA­RA­TION OF AC­COUNT­ABIL­I­TY AND GOOD GOV­ER­NANCE is of­fered to pub­li­cal­ly af­firm and for­mal­ly re­quest FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF to in­stall, per Ar­ti­cle 7 of the FI­FA Statutes, a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee for the pur­pose of re­mov­ing the Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the T&TFF; and any en­ti­ty or in­di­vid­ual that as­sumes a pol­i­cy mak­ing and/or ex­ec­u­tive role on its be­half, and re­place the cur­rent Ex­ec­u­tive Board with a group of in­di­vid­u­als ded­i­cat­ed to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and good gov­er­nance.

It is fur­ther not­ed that pol­i­cy mak­ers with­in the re­con­sti­tut­ed na­tion­al foot­ball gov­ern­ing body shall be ex­pect­ed to com­mit to the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tions:

1. Re­solved, to re­pair and re­con­struct the present T&TFF Con­sti­tu­tion and Statutes to prop­er­ly re­flect, serve, and rep­re­sent the needs of all facets of the foot­ball fam­i­ly in T&T.

2. Re­solved, to es­tab­lish di­rect dis­cus­sions with play­ers from the 2006 Se­nior Men's Na­tion­al Team who re­main en­gaged in le­gal dis­pute with the TTFF for the pur­pose of end­ing their plight and in­cor­po­rate their valu­able re­sources to as­sist in the de­vel­op­ment of foot­ball in T&T.

3. Re­solved, to cre­ate a se­ries of com­mit­tees for the pur­pose of analysing and ad­dress­ing ar­eas of vi­tal in­ter­est in the de­vel­op­ment of foot­ball in T&T.

4. Re­solved, to rein­vig­o­rate ro­bust sup­port from all sec­tors of T&T for all na­tion­al team ef­forts in their par­tic­i­pa­tion in qual­i­fi­ca­tion and FI­FA tour­na­ment com­pe­ti­tion.

5. Re­solved, to work to­ward the goal of hav­ing both the Men's and Women's Se­nior Na­tion­al Teams achieve no less than a top 50 mark in the FI­FA rank­ing of na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tion teams.

6. Re­solved, to es­tab­lish T&T as a des­ti­na­tion point for in­ter­na­tion­al clubs for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing both play­er de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties.

7. Re­solved, to es­tab­lish a for­mal as­so­ci­a­tion with Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al to en­sure the ideals of this de­c­la­ra­tion are ad­hered to and re­spect­ed.

8. Re­solved, to re­brand the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion in a man­ner that is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a new spir­it and di­rec­tion.

9. Re­solved, to de­vel­op com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties and mul­ti­ple rev­enue streams that will pro­vide both a favourable re­turn on in­vest­ment to the stake­hold­ers and op­por­tu­ni­ty to prop­er­ly cap­i­talise pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives that fall un­der the aus­pices of the na­tion­al foot­ball gov­ern­ing body.

10. Re­solved, to utilise var­i­ous means of tra­di­tion­al and dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion in or­der to es­tab­lish a ro­bust and sub­stan­tive lev­el of in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to mat­ters as­so­ci­at­ed with na­tion­al pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives.

The un­der­signed, shall with­out re­serve and with mal­ice to­ward none, de­clare the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion to be an en­ti­ty that has squan­dered th con­fi­dence of its con­stituen­cy and as such does not hold the lev­el of le­git­i­ma­cy re­quired to prop­er­ly con­duct its af­fairs.

WHY FI­FA MUST BE EN­LIST­ED TO HELP T&T FOOT­BALL

FI­FA re­cent­ly an­nounced an ex­tra­or­di­nary in­cur­sion in­to Caribbean foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion with the cre­ation of a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee per Ar­ti­cle 7 of the FI­FA Statutes. While some would char­ac­terise FI­FA's move as an over­reach of its or­gan­i­sa­tion­al pow­ers at best or the in­tro­duc­tion of Eu­ro­pean neo-colo­nial­ism at worst, I am of the opin­ion that FI­FA has a le­git­i­mate role to play in re­form­ing Caribbean foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion; not be­cause FI­FA is the paragon of ad­min­is­tra­tive and eth­i­cal best prac­tices; as re­cent events have sug­gest­ed they are not. Rather, FI­FA's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is, in part, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­deem it­self as much as it is a du­ty to help clean up the mess they part­ly cre­at­ed. How­ev­er, there must be an un­apolo­getic call to urge FI­FA to re­spect Caribbean ad­min­is­tra­tors and so­ci­ety. Self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and the right to au­tonomous­ly man­age the cri­sis can­not be bar­gained away. How­ev­er, as the para­ble holds "to whom much is giv­en, much is ex­pect­ed in re­turn."

Our Caribbean ad­min­is­tra­tors must rise to the oc­ca­sion and take heed of the op­por­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed to cre­ate ad­min­is­tra­tive mod­els that recog­nise the vi­tal im­por­tance of all stake­hold­ers con­nect­ed to the foot­ball fam­i­ly. Be it play­ers, coach­es, of­fi­cials, fans, me­dia, or ad­min­is­tra­tors. Every­one in­volved in the game must pos­sess the prop­er lev­el of mu­tu­al re­spect and sup­port. Nowhere does this new par­a­digm meet its great­est chal­lenge than in T&T. I re­gard TTFF vice-pres­i­dent, Rudy Thomas and All Sport own­er, Tony Har­ford as dear friends whom I have had the plea­sure of work­ing with while I served as TTFF Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor. How­ev­er, I be­lieve their cur­rent at­tempt to put on a brave front is mis­guid­ed and will ham­per the best op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vance and ap­ply re­al re­form to a de­crepit and want­i­ng or­gan­i­sa­tion. As a re­sult of the tremen­dous chal­lenges posed by its own mak­ing, the TTFF is in need of a Mar­shall-plan type ap­proach to not on­ly fix the dam­age and re­verse the abus­es done over the years but to bet­ter en­sure the TTFF and CFU by ex­ten­sion be­come a bea­con of the best prac­tices of sports ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In keep­ing with that view, I am of the be­lief that FI­FA has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­here to the ax­iom made fa­mous by Col­in Pow­ell in ex­plain­ing why in­vad­ing Bagh­dad was a poor idea; "you break it, you fix it". Sev­er­al rea­sons sup­port my view that FI­FA must step in. First, if FI­FA is tru­ly in­ter­est­ed in help­ing its mem­ber or­gan­i­sa­tions em­brace trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance, they have an oblig­a­tion to play a key role in re­pair­ing the TTFF. Sec­ond, FI­FA, through its own omis­sion and/or col­lu­sion failed to en­gage in prop­er over­sight of mil­lions of dol­lars ear­marked for foot­ball de­vel­op­ment to ben­e­fit the whole of T&T. Third, ne­glect­ful over­sight of the TTFF en­abled the fes­ter­ing of poor ad­min­is­tra­tive, ac­count­ing, and eth­i­cal prac­tices with­in the TTFF lead­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion to its present state of tur­moil. The cri­sis cur­rent­ly fac­ing T&T foot­ball can be­come the great­est op­por­tu­ni­ty to build anew, re­ject the prac­tices of the past, and en­gage in prop­er stew­ard­ship of the game. The on­ly way such a vi­sion will come to fruition is if every­one from Port-of-Spain to Zurich, who claim in­ter­est in the bet­ter­ment of the game, de­mand bet­ter per­for­mance and ac­count­abil­i­ty from pol­i­cy-mak­ers while ac­knowl­edg­ing their own re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the stew­ard­ship of the game.

Lin­coln Phillips,

For­mer Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor