Jason Gordon: Officials don't care about T&T football

Gor­don's Erin FC which won the South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (SFA) League and League Cup ti­tles last year, said the sport has been at its low­est in T&T.

"While foot­ball con­tin­ues to suf­fer at the re­gion­al, as­so­ci­a­tion and youth lev­els, of­fi­cials seem to be more con­cerned with the con­struc­tion of a Home of Foot­ball.

"In the south zone, we are yet to re­ceive pay­ment for our win­nings last year, while there is yet to be as­sis­tance for the re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions."

Gor­don told Guardian Me­dia Sports that teams are al­so un­sure to re­ceive monies this year in the SFA al­so, while in the East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU), there was no foot­ball this year.

"Such a large area to cater for, yet the EC­FU couldn't reach out to thou­sands of young, tal­ent­ed play­ers be­cause there was no help from the par­ent TTFA," Gor­don ex­plained.

Erin FC which earned pro­mo­tion to the T&T Su­per League (TTSL) this year, be­fore they pulled out be­cause of their in­abil­i­ty to pay play­ers match fees, has called on the TTFA to fo­cus more on the re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions which are the feed­er pro­grammes for na­tion­al teams, TTSL clubs, T&T Pro League teams and schools in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League.

Gor­don's team is still owed $22,000 for its $15,000 and $7,000 win­nings in the SFA League and League Cup tour­na­ments last year. Pitch­men FC, which cap­tured the Ex­ec­u­tive Cup is al­so owed $7,000 in prizes.

"We need now to elect peo­ple who care about the sport and care about the sports­men and women in the sport. As it is now, there is too much pol­i­tics which has led to ne­glect of the sport on the field. We need on­ly to look at the re­sults of our women foot­ballers and the Un­der-20 team at the CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fiers re­cent­ly, as well as the state of our youth foot­ball to recog­nise the demise of the sport," Gor­don said.

SOURCE: T&T Guardian