When you op­er­ate in a sport­ing en­vi­ron­ment or or­gan­i­sa­tion for as long as I have or in most cas­es, ten years or more, it's a bit eas­i­er to un­der­stand that medi­oc­rity didn't show up overnight and in some cas­es did not al­ways ex­ist.

When I joined the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion in 1999/2000, the coun­try was in the midst of dom­i­nat­ing a World Cup qual­i­fy­ing group that in­clud­ed cur­rent-day Con­ca­caf pow­er­hous­es Cana­da, Pana­ma and Mex­i­co. A year lat­er, we host­ed one of the more suc­cess­ful FI­FA Men's Un­der-17 World Cups. We had a pletho­ra of over­seas-based pro­fes­sion­als play­ing in high­ly re­spectable leagues in Eu­rope.

At that time, while Windies crick­et had be­gun en­ter­ing a pe­ri­od of de­cline fol­low­ing the dom­i­nance of the 70s straight in­to the 90s, the re­gion­al side was still very for­mi­da­ble and con­sid­ered world beat­ers, our track and field ath­letes were al­so on a high. In 2006, we qual­i­fied for our first se­nior FI­FA World Cup fol­lowed by two youth World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tions in quick suc­ces­sion.

We host­ed an­oth­er suc­cess­ful FI­FA Youth Women's World Cup and in 2015 en­joyed our best Con­ca­caf Gold Cup per­for­mance since 2000. Not to for­get our women reached its clos­est ever point to World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion in 2014. None of our foot­ball teams have won a rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment since the U-20 men and se­nior women won Caribbean ti­tles in 2014.

So you see, we weren't al­ways in a state of medi­oc­rity. But what caus­es com­fort in a state of medi­oc­rity? Ac­cep­tance plays a big part.

The time­line for medi­oc­rity to take over in or­gan­i­sa­tions varies de­pend­ing on sev­er­al fac­tors, but it typ­i­cal­ly hap­pens grad­u­al­ly over months or even years. Here are some key stages and in­di­ca­tors of this de­cline: Ear­ly Signs (months to a year). Per­for­mance Drops: Ini­tial de­cline in per­for­mance and re­sults in com­pe­ti­tions. Small com­pro­mis­es and mi­nor com­pro­mis­es in train­ing in­ten­si­ty, fa­cil­i­ties, and sup­port ser­vices.

There are low­ered ex­pec­ta­tions with a shift in at­ti­tude where sub par re­sults be­come more ac­cept­able. Mid-Stage Signs (1-2 years). In­creased In­juries: High­er fre­quen­cy of in­juries due to in­ad­e­quate prepa­ra­tion and care. This is where staff per­son­nel and even ath­letes be­gin to be­lieve that this is the high­est lev­el and there is no de­sire or need to do bet­ter. Or, in some cas­es, the be­lief that bet­ter is pos­si­ble has dis­ap­peared.

Staff Turnover: Where key per­son­nel be­gin to leave or are cut out, lead­ing to dis­rup­tions and a loss of ex­per­tise.

Fi­nan­cial Strain: Re­duced rev­enue from spon­sor­ships, tick­et sales, and oth­er sources due to de­clin­ing per­for­mance and rep­u­ta­tion in­clud­ing loss in stake­hold­er re­la­tion­ships.

Ad­vanced Signs (2-5 years) in­clude - Tal­ent Drain: Dif­fi­cul­ty in at­tract­ing and re­tain­ing top tal­ent, both ath­letes and staff. Rep­u­ta­tion­al Dam­age: Grow­ing neg­a­tive per­cep­tion among fans, spon­sors, and the me­dia in­ten­si­fied by lack of prop­er lead­er­ship and mo­ti­va­tion.

Recog­ni­tion and Re­al­i­sa­tion (varies) - Crit­i­cal In­ci­dents: Ma­jor events, such as scan­dals, sig­nif­i­cant loss­es, lack of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and drop in per­for­mance high­light the ex­tent of the de­cline. Stake­hold­er Pres­sure: In­creased or in our case in T&T, a lack of pres­sure from stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing fans, spon­sors, and gov­ern­ing bod­ies, de­mand­ing changes.

In­ter­nal As­sess­ment: Lead­er­ship may con­duct a thor­ough re­view and ac­knowl­edge the depth of the is­sues. The process of recog­nis­ing and ad­dress­ing medi­oc­rity can be ac­cel­er­at­ed by proac­tive mea­sures such as reg­u­lar per­for­mance au­dits, main­tain­ing trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels, and fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment. If left unchecked, the grad­ual de­cline can deeply en­trench medi­oc­rity, mak­ing it much hard­er to re­verse.

Every­one and every or­gan­i­sa­tion has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fix this.

Stan­dards in sports prepa­ra­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion are es­sen­tial for en­sur­ing op­ti­mal per­for­mance, safe­ty, and fair com­pe­ti­tion. Some key stan­dards com­mon­ly up­held in­clude prepa­ra­tion stan­dards-re­lat­ed train­ing pro­grammes: Ath­letes fol­low sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly de­signed train­ing pro­grammes tai­lored to their spe­cif­ic needs and goals.

Nu­tri­tion and Di­et: Prop­er nu­tri­tion plans are es­sen­tial for peak per­for­mance and re­cov­ery. In­jury Pre­ven­tion and Man­age­ment: Reg­u­lar health checks, phys­io­ther­a­py, and med­ical sup­port to pre­vent and treat in­juries. There is too much in this area to men­tion in this ar­ti­cle.

Men­tal Health: Psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port to main­tain men­tal well-be­ing and han­dle the pres­sures of com­pe­ti­tion. Fa­cil­i­ties and Equip­ment: High-qual­i­ty, well-main­tained fa­cil­i­ties and equip­ment.

Ad­min­is­tra­tion Stan­dards - Gov­er­nance and Lead­er­ship: Clear and ef­fec­tive or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture and lead­er­ship.Com­pli­ance and Ethics: Ad­her­ence to rules, reg­u­la­tions, and eth­i­cal stan­dards set by gov­ern­ing bod­ies. Fi­nan­cial Man­age­ment: Trans­par­ent and ac­count­able fi­nan­cial prac­tices. Event Man­age­ment: Ef­fi­cient or­gan­i­sa­tion of events, in­clud­ing lo­gis­tics, sched­ul­ing, and safe­ty mea­sures. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Pub­lic Re­la­tions: Ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies to en­gage with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing ath­letes, fans, and me­dia.Tal­ent De­vel­op­ment: Sys­tems to iden­ti­fy and nur­ture tal­ent from grass­roots to elite lev­els. In­clu­siv­i­ty and Di­ver­si­ty: Poli­cies to pro­mote in­clu­siv­i­ty and di­ver­si­ty in sports par­tic­i­pa­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion. Im­ple­ment­ing and main­tain­ing these stan­dards helps sports or­gan­i­sa­tions achieve suc­cess and sus­tain­abil­i­ty while pro­mot­ing fair play and ath­lete wel­fare.

As I men­tioned ear­li­er, we have what it takes to get this done. Do we re­al­ly want it? If you don't at least as­pire to pre­pare and plan like the best, then you can­not com­pete with the best no mat­ter how much tal­ent is around. Every­one wants to see us bring home medals from the Paris Olympics and a cou­ple ex­tra spots raise the ex­pec­ta­tions of the 2026 World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion. "It eas­i­er to qual­i­fy now. We have to be at the next World Cup," the av­er­age man tells me every week.

Michelan­ge­lo once said, "The greater dan­ger for most of us lies not in set­ting our aim too high and falling short; but in set­ting our aim too low and achiev­ing our mark" and then Steve Jobs added: "Be a yard­stick of qual­i­ty. Some peo­ple aren't used to an en­vi­ron­ment where ex­cel­lence is ex­pect­ed."

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Me­dia. He was a FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and 2013 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in Turkey. He has trav­elled to 88 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in sport. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com