walter.alibey@guardian.co.tt
T&T's football remains tangled in a web of confusion through lack of funding, personal agendas, burdening debts and increasing demands, among others, on the administrators of the parent T&T Football Association (T&TFA).
Sunday's Annual General Meeting (AGM) at which football association president David John-Williams faced a motion of no-confidence for his reluctance to provide accountability and transparency to his members on the now-controversial Home of Football at Balmain in Couva, worked in his favour when Osmond Downer, the T&T Football Referees Association (TTRFA) vice-president gained support when he instead opted to warn the local football boss for his actions and suggested a no-confidence motion be moved on him, if he again withholds information.
Downer's request was seconded by Michael Awai, the North East Stars technical director, and came after he congratulated John-Williams for his work so far on the development of the sport. Only in June this year Downer made a similar recommendation at an AGM, and it was hoped Sunday, that John-Williams would have been in the firing line this time.
To some members, Downer has now become the main target, but others believe his move was the right one and served as an official warning to the football boss in the future.
Keith Look Loy, the T&T Super League representative on the Board of Directors of the T&TFA described it as a disgrace, saying it challenges one's commitment to proper ethics and basic principles of good governance. "Despite the glaring lack of transparency, mismanagement, the collapse of our national teams' programme, and even deceit of the David John-Williams administration, enough members remain satisfied that he is the man to lead them" Look Loy disappointingly told Guardian Sports yesterday.
But one member who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed the plague in the sport that entails little to no funding to satisfy a web of personal desires and agendas by board members, demands by the nation's football teams to rightfully compete at all tournaments, feverish attempts to clear mounting debts of the football association.
"Going on trips abroad and achieving personal benefits for themselves and their organizations have been the basis for key decisions by members," the member said. He said while he does not agree with John-Williams' style of management totally, he understands some of his reasoning to an extent. "In reality, the president has been between a rock and a hard place with little finance to fund countless projects and programmes. In other words, it's a web of confusion but still football has to go on," the member explained.
John-Williams has also been unable to conjure up the support of corporate T&T and has made it perfectly clear he will attempt to do so through the Home of Football.
The member said he will attempt to assist the president by offering creative ideas. "With the football home, all visiting teams will be placed there at a cost. National teams will also hold camps there and facilities such the hotels, entertainment centre, bars, futsal, beach soccer and other outdoor facilities will be used to generate revenue," the member explained. He called for the right people to be recruited to manage the football facility.
He said for this year alone the T&TFA's income has been $8 million to cover all the demands of local and international football, which he also sees as impossible to achieve.