WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

Con­ca­caf Pres­i­dent Vic­tor Mon­tagliani yes­ter­day com­plet­ed a vis­it of the Home of Foot­ball in Bal­main, Cou­va, which he ad­mit­ted had left him pleased.

Mon­tagliani’s vis­it with a del­e­ga­tion from the re­gion­al foot­ball body on a cour­tesy call by the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion was a heart-warm­ing one, as he praised the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent, Kieron Ed­wards and his team for the work they have done so far. Say­ing Ed­wards had built a strong team, Mon­tagliani point­ed to ev­i­dence of the coun­try’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup, among oth­er achieve­ments, which he said were part of Ed­wards’ vi­sion.

Mon­tagliani, at yes­ter­day’s press con­fer­ence at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um which is on the same com­pound of the Home of Foot­ball, told Ed­wards- “ I re­mem­ber when you got elect­ed, we met, broke bread, and you gave me your vi­sion and I am very pleased to know that not on­ly have you fol­lowed through with ex­act­ly what you said in our first meet­ing, but it’s com­ing to fruition, and you can see wha­telse is com­ing.”

Ac­cord­ing to Ed­wards- “ I was very proud to see in your of­fice that you have a re­minder that it’s a foot­ball first phi­los­o­phy, and that warms my heart to be hon­est, that a foot­baller like your­self is now at the healm of the TTFA and push­ing the most im­por­tant thing which is this thing (foot­ball) for the coun­try. And we all know how foot­ball is for this coun­try, so I think you’ve set a great foun­da­tion for not on­ly the re­birth, but the growth and suc­cess of the TTFA mov­ing for­ward.”

The Con­ca­caf boss met with two Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment and dis­cussed the way for­ward for foot­ball and sports. At present, the gov­ern­ment is in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in sports, and par­tic­u­lar­ly foot­ball, where it pays the salaries of play­ers in Tier 1 of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League.

Mon­tagliani ex­plained that the coun­try needs on­ly to con­tin­ue on its jour­ney in foot­ball, which would take it in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, say­ing the sport has changed dras­ti­cal­ly from what it used to be many years ago.

“ It’s not on­ly be­ing a pow­er­house in the Caribbean, but on the world stage. The game has changed, and I know we al­ways like to go back to the old days when we had some suc­cess. But the re­al­i­ty is that the game is no longer what it used to be. It’s a big­ger busi­ness; the play­ers are faster and stronger. It’s a dif­fer­ent game and the TTFA has re­alised that it’s life.”

“ When some coun­tries qual­i­fied for the World Cup, there was no in­ter­net, there was no iPhone, as now every­thing has changed. Every­thing is on the phone, it’s a glob­al game, it’s not about the re­gion, it’s about get­ting on the glob­al stage, which the TTFA has, and Trinidad as a coun­try can do. So, it’s now to con­tin­ue the jour­ney and en­sure that you have the dis­ci­pline to car­ry out the vi­sion, and I know that it is here,” Mon­tagliani ex­plained.

Ed­wards, in a re­sponse, told the me­dia the FA must con­tin­ue to strength­en ties with Con­ca­caf.

“ It’s im­por­tant for us at the FA to sup­port Con­ca­caf. I would have had ideas and vi­sions for the TTFA and re­al­ly brought it back to the TTFA to a stan­dard where we once were and even sur­passed that stan­dard as well. The sup­port of Con­ca­caf over the past 12 months has been tremen­dous. The work­shops we did, I must pay a note and homage to the sup­port by Con­ca­caf.”

Ed­wards said this vis­it by Mon­tagliani marks their in­ten­tion to build a re­la­tion­ship with Con­ca­caf.

Both Mon­tagliani and Ed­wards were sched­uled to leave for Paraguay for a Con­ca­caf Con­gress there.