By now, most know about the saga surrounding Jack Warner and the ill-fated CFU meeting in Trinidad and Tobago that featured FIFA presidential challenger, Mohammed Bin Hamman.
While a process to determine the veracity of the allegations is about to conclude, Trinbagonians have been given an important chance to effect change in a manner that can propel every aspect of our domestic game forward.
On a macro scale, the present football controversy and other well documented imbroglios concerning our national federation may present the type of crisis that can truly provide our society a moment to re-evaluate what is expected of our leaders and institutions, for the struggles currently facing football in Trinidad and Tobago is a microcosm of the wider malady that afflicts T&T society, an inability to adequately address the leadership deficit that has metastasised throughout every rung of our society.
However, it is not only our leaders and institutions that need a review. Each Trinbagonian adult must take an account of self and determine what they can do to help our institutions, heal our communities, and hold our leaders accountable. One thing is for sure, the fete mentality that currently exists within our society has overtaken our sense of purpose. As a result, there are certain segments of our population at risk of becoming a permanent underclass, unable to properly meet the challenges of a globalised economy.
Recently, a friend sent me an email that described the extraordinary feats achieved by Trinbagonians for over a century. Life changing, substantive, internationally recognised events that were caused or shaped by a person or group that came from our modestly populated island. For over 150 years, our society has produced world renowned contributors in areas such as civil rights, sports, art, medicine, politics, and music. In short, the message of the email was that T&T has always been a place that “plays above its weight class”.
Until fairly recent times, the question has never been whether we are capable of great things. History has clearly established that we are. Instead, the challenge was how products of our society could manage, maintain, and build upon such achievements.
However, history is also sadly littered with once great Trinbagonian accomplishments followed up by a weak second act. At the very moment when more is required of the achiever, it became all too familiar for the subject person or institution to take the proverbial foot off the pedal, coast, and live off the inertia built up from previous efforts. Showing great promise yet not living up to potential is as much a part of our national identity as our ability to occasionally play above our weight.
As a result, the ominous phrase “what if” seems to be ever present when discussions turn to the eventual deterioration of another T&T wonder. What if Dwight didn’t stay those extra days in T&T and incurred the wrath of Sir Alex? What if Trinidad pressed its case to host more Cricket World Cup matches?
What if the TTFF decided against reneging on its agreement with the 2006 World Cup players? Where would our country be without such lapses in judgment? There is a common thread that runs through the beads of bad decisions that has frequently limited our collective and individual potential, omission of duty of both individual Trinbagonians and the people we regard as leaders.
Whether talking about the shameful manner in which Movie Towne owner, Derek Lee Chin, allegedly handled two patrons who suffered an attempted carjacking at the Port of Spain entertainment center or the uncompassionate manner in which squatter farmers were forced to witness the destruction of their potato harvest, the decisions and actions embraced by our policy makers have been both wanting and all too frequently based on self interest rather than service.
For when our leaders display a spirit of service rather than indulgence, the population will respond in kind. Service based leadership and action is not an unattainable or exotic ideal. John F Kennedy famously stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.
Gandhi exclaimed that once a responsible society embraced the equal value of corresponding duties “rights will follow as spring follows winter”. And the wisdom and basis of biblical justice as established in Galatians 6: 7-9, better known by its message “you reap what you sow” underscore the power of past and present action on future events.
The common denominator of these axioms is the elegantly simple message reflecting the truth that we are masters of our destiny and can significantly influence our path through our actions.
However, for as much as we can effect positive change through our actions, we can also engender toxicity and malaise through our neglect and malevolence. Sadly this has become the chosen path for far too many and, as a result, our collective and individual actions have placed T&T at an ethical, professional, and institutional crossroads.
The malaise, some would say implosion, that threatens the TTFF can happen to any institution in T&T because we have failed to embrace the best practices of respective disciplines and establish a set of expectations of each other to ensure sustainable and proficient performances are the rule rather than the exception.
The social compact that creates a working society has been steadily deteriorating for the longest while and if the current trend is not arrested soon, the flashes of lawlessness and lack of appreciation of anything resembling order and restraint will soon become more commonplace and an indelible part of our society.
We can do better. The challenges facing our football can provide a glimpse of how old ways of conducting business can give way to methods that befit the 21st century. That is the power of sport and it is through sport administration that we have a ready-made opportunity to display our product (football) in a manner that can be measured against the rest of the world once the remnants of the old regime give way.