"Do away with the proposed Unified Football League." Brent Sancho, owner of Pro League club Central FC, has suggested.
He believes at this time of obvious little resources, that priority should be placed on a top-tier tournament, regardless of what name it is called, to ensure the production of players for the country's national teams, particularly the senior national team, preparing for World Cups, CONCACAF Nations Leagues and other top tournaments.
The FIFA-installed Normalisation Committee, which manages the T&T Football Association (TTFA) has set the Unified League as a major tournament this year, following more than two years of ongoing talks between the T&T Pro League and the T&T Super League, the country's top-ranked and second-ranked tournaments, with input from officials from CONCACAF, UEFA and football's world governing body FIFA, but still it has failed to result into anything meaningful.
Guardian Media Sports has been told that the idea of the unified league was put into the hands of normalisation committee chairman Robert Hadad and its members.
Yesterday, however, Sancho said there was initially a belief that the unified league would have provided financial stability but the goalpost has now been shifted.
"The idea and understanding that the T&T Pro League has its shortcomings are very clear but I am sure the pros outweigh the cons as it relates to the pro league. The history will show you that from a statistical point of view that a vibrant pro league has produced some of the best results in T&T football.
"Even before the Pro League, the top tier system of football saw us coming close to a World Cup in 1989 and then close to a World Cup in the 1970s.
"Moving forward, with the limited resources that we have we can only look at the current state of football with respect to the national teams, the mere fact that they cannot play friendlies because they lack financial resources.
"All of that comes down to the fact that they have not been able to engage anybody in corporate T&T to assist in a significant way, as well as as the fact that the government of T&T has not assisted in a significant way which leads me to believe that there is meagre to little resources.
"So it makes no sense trying to spread those resources across 30-plus or 20-plus clubs. We should be focusing on what's important in terms of the clubs that would have had a history and are more geared towards playing top-flight football or professional football. Those are the ones you should be looking at, and with all respect to the super league, because they have their role to play but right now, at this critical juncture, I do believe that the little funds that seem to be within the pool of things, should be put in the right place.
"How does it get to the right place, you need a conversation among the stakeholders which is all the different chambers in T&T, the persons within the pro league, the persons within the super league because they have their role to play, although maybe not as significant a role as is being suggested, and of course, the normalisation committee and the government of T&T," Sancho explained.
Sancho, who is on a committee attempting to put together a Caribbean Professional League, said he believes the normalisation committee should not be given the responsibility to put on a unified league as its workload is already too much.
The Central FC owner called for all stakeholders to be on the same page where football development is concerned, taking a swipe at the government for its reluctance to offer grants to local professional footballers during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, as was done for all other industry of workers.
Sancho also lashed out at the normalisation committee, which he said did not provide any form of financial relief to local players and clubs from the FIFA-distributed COVID relief funds, as was done in many other FIFA Member Associations.