“In the case of at least one player, his parents forgot to bring an extra jersey for him. So, at 2 a.m., the 15-year-old national player had to take off his Capelli jersey and walk bareback through the airport and across the parking lot to be driven home.”
On this day, when the pace of everyday life adjusts to accommodate the start of the academic year, it is a source of deepening despair to reflect on the reality of how we adults, the ones presumably with a bit of wisdom, the ones with the authority to make meaningful decisions, treat our talented youngsters – the ones who actually aspire to achieve great things for themselves and their country – that cannot even rise to the level of disdain.
And I say “we” because I am one of those adults who, without being directly involved in any way in the administration of football, looked on from the fairly close proximity of a media practitioner at the corruption, greed and selfishness strangling the game and the careers of many a player and opted to do nothing.
That quotation at the start of this column is from an article on “Wired868” from almost two weeks ago in which Lasana Liburd, the founder of the 14-year-old website, detailed the humiliation being endured by national youth players – boys and girls – who, for reasons that are not being explained by the Normalisation Committee of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association, are expected to perform in recycled adult-sized uniforms and then return them together with any branded training gear they may also have within minutes of touching down at Piarco.
As disturbing as that situation is, what is more revealing is the absence of any reaction or consequence for a scenario that is not just a complete and utter disgrace, but should have prompted immediate remedial and, if necessary, punitive action.
Just picture in your mind the reality of two national youth teams-– one male, one female --representing the country in uniforms several sizes too big because they were really meant for the men’s senior national side.
Lasana’s story tells the tale of a female player being reprimanded by the referee for continuously rolling up her sleeves during a game simply because the uniform was so big and therefore so uncomfortable that she had to find some impromptu way of dealing with the situation.
Some of you reading about this for the first time may be moved to ask: “What madness is this?” Others may carry the topic into the nearest liming spot or Whatsapp chat where, with any luck, it will stay alive for a couple days before being replaced by something more pressing, like assessing the chances of the Trinbago Knight Riders men earning maximum points as the Caribbean Premier League bowls off its Trinidad and Tobago leg tomorrow.
There is something very wrong with a national psyche like ours which not only shuns activism but would opt to ridicule the few who choose to stand up and be counted, even as we continue to cuss and complain about the circumstances that the activists are seeking to highlight in pursuit of a solution that would actually benefit the cussers and complainers.
And by the way, it is no consolation to be told that we are not alone in this regard. What really is the point of being an adult if we can’t take care of, and provide pathways to progress, for those operating under our sphere of authority, whether that sphere is the family, the business place or the sporting organisation? Is it only when we, or some family member or some friend, are directly impacted that we are prompted to at least pretend we are interested in taking action?
Beyond whatever excuses which may be offered up, it should bother us that so many of the talented youth of the nation should be treated in such a shabby manner. Can you imagine how that young national footballer feels about the experience of having to pull off his training gear and then walk bareback through the airport?
Maybe others have worse experiences, I don’t know. Maybe there are even more terrible tales to tell in other sports or in times past which may explain why we seem so comfortable with such treatment being meted out in full public view.
As for the continuing silence of the Normalisation Committee on this matter, it is only par for the course. Decades of experience with unresolved scandals of varying degrees in the public domain have taught us that a stony silence by the presumed culprits is akin to a watertight defence.
Why? Because we lack the will to persevere in the pursuit of justice, even if it means saving another crop of teenagers from humiliation by their handlers.
SOURCE: T&T Express