Why stop at Leo?
If football has now taken a backseat to marketable images and therefore the ability to generate significant sums of money from excited sponsors, why not milk the upcoming Concacaf Gold Cup experience for all it’s worth by recalling other key and beloved personalities associated with the historic first — and so far only — appearance at a senior World Cup football finals?
What about Russell Latapy? Maybe this might be the opportunity for “The Little Magician” to prove Beenhakker wrong for just giving him a final few minutes at the end of the last group fixture against Paraguay in Germany seven years ago. Then there’s Dwight Yorke, the captain of that memorable campaign, “The Smiling Assassin”, who looks as fit as ever based on his appearances over the last couple of weeks at fund-raising golf tournaments alongside Latapy and the other member of that celebrated national sporting triumvirate — Brian Lara.
Come to think of it, it might be a good idea to draft “The Prince of Port of Spain” into the Gold Cup travelling party as our version of David Beckham, a sort of team ambassador. Never mind that most of those watching won’t have a clue who he is, it’s bound to get enthused members of corporate Trinidad and Tobago lining up outside the doors of the Football Federation….sorry, Association to hand in their cheques and get on board for the high-profile experience.
Okay, so the whole thing might be over after three games in the space of eight days in the United States next month, but surely the coffers of the TTFA will benefit. And that’s why the relatively new boss of the organisation, Raymond Tim Kee, appears to be so keen on pushing through the short-term return of the Dutchman, who took over from Bertille St Clair when we were at the bottom of the qualifying table in 2005, and achieved what is considered a minor miracle, culminating in the never-to-be-forgotten victory in Bahrain at the end of that year to clinch World Cup qualification.
Ian Prescott’s story in these pages on Saturday quoted Tim Kee as saying “I took this as a business decision,” elaborating that a good showing at the Gold Cup would enhance the marketability of Trinidad and Tobago football. Unless “I” now means “we” in modern jargon, that comment also suggests that this was a unilateral decision by the TTFA president. Isn’t this the same sort of thing that Jack Warner was accused of doing time after time after time? The more things change the more they remain the same.
Sarcasm and cynicism apart though, it is deeply distressing what this apparent decision reveals about the administration responsible for the affairs of football in this country. They can decorate it how they want, what the return of Beenhakker for such a short stint will confirm is that we remain a colonial outpost in the minds of many powerful and influential people, unwilling to trust in our own ability and ever-reliant on any number of Messianic personalities from what we believe to be the enlightened First World to lead us out of the bondage of our own pitiful circumstances.
What this retrograde step also reveals is that Tim Kee and his administration really have no proper plan for the steady, continuous growth and development of the national game. In desperate pursuit of a financial quick-fix, they are banking on the business community being as slavishly adherent to their philosophy that anything foreign must be better than what we have here. In this regard I suspect they are right, not that it will make a blind bit of difference to the health of Trinidad and Tobago football once this ill-advised rekindling of the love affair with Beenhakker is over.
More than 30 years after Alvin Corneal was replaced as national coach by Dutchman Jan Zwartkruis after leading this country to the Caribbean title, we are now revisiting that shameful spectacle as another native of The Netherlands returns to relegate the national co-head coaches Hutson Charles and Jamaal Shabazz to backroom support staff.
Not surprisingly, given the prevailing “eat ah food” culture of this despairingly corrupt land, neither has or will utter a discouraging word over their demotion, firstly because they are yet to be paid for work already done, and secondly because they hope to return to the top job when the tryst with Leo is over, or at least until another major tournament comes around and they are called upon to once again give way to a “proper” coach.
This imminent decision says so much about a country that, 50 years after political Independence, lacks the self-belief, the will and the discipline to do the hard work — with attendant checks and balances — that results in real sustained growth and development. It speaks to a mantra of “foreign first, local after” and, probably more than anything else, the steadfast unwillingness of anyone to jeopardise his or her stake by speaking out or refusing to be party to the great charade.
As stated previously, I suspect that Tim Kee will be proven right as the money starts to pour in once Beenhakker signs on the dotted line. But this will merely be another example of the end not justifying the means, even if the end also includes qualification for at least the Gold Cup quarter-finals.
Look, if it’s money they want so badly, forget about Beenhakker, Latapy, Yorke and Lara. Just go back to Jack.