Nigel Si­mon

For­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Dex­ter Skeene says the T&T Pro League is de­ter­mined to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in foot­ball through­out T&T, and the youth and young peo­ple of the na­tion.

Skeene, the Pro League's Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, made this state­ment while de­liv­er­ing his ad­dress at the open­ing of the 2015/2016 sea­son of the Pro League at the VIP, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing to the crowd on hand which in­clud­ed for­mer na­tion­al stand­outs in Sed­ley Joseph and Ever­ald "Gal­ly" Cum­mings, Skeene said, "I wel­come you here this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) with a tremen­dous feel­ing of pride."

He added: "Why? Be­cause as the league stands proud­ly with its part­ner Dig­i­cel, a part­ner who has stood by the league's vi­sion, play­ers,coach­es, board, man­age­ment, fans and oth­er cor­po­rate part­ners in fight­ing a no­ble cause, pur­pose and mis­sion.

With re­gards to the Pro League Skeene said there re­mained those in key de­ci­sion mak­ing po­si­tions who con­tin­ue to mis­un­der­stand what the T&T Pro League is about in a place such as T&T.

"But the Pro League can stand proud con­fi­dent that notwith­stand­ing, at times hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment our own­ers clubs and play­ers and coach­es con­tin­ue to im­prove on the qual­i­ty of foot­ball that is on dis­play at Dig­i­cel TT Pro League Games and Tour­na­ments.

He boast­ed, "No mat­ter what, we are de­ter­mined to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in foot­ball and through the youth and young peo­ple of the na­tion..

"The Pro League is about build­ing an in­dus­try, it's about de­vel­op­ing foot­ball as a pro­fes­sion, cre­at­ing a path­way for young­sters to as­pire to earn a liv­ing from play­ing foot­ball.

"It is about sup­ply­ing the na­tion­al se­nior team with play­ers like At­taula Guer­ra, Willis Plaza, Jan-Michael Williams, Jo­evin Jones, Keron Cum­mings, who can ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly com­pete at in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

Re­flect­ing on the start of the league, Skeene not­ed it all start­ed in 2002 with some in­no­va­tors, pi­o­neers who had a vi­sion to cre­ate an in­dus­try with pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball, to take T&T foot­ball to the next lev­el.

He said the list in­clud­ed Jer­ry Hospedales, Ja­maal Shabazz, David John-Williams, Dar­ryl Ma­habir, Richard Fakoory who had in­vest­ed over $325 mil­lion, in bring­ing pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball to where it was to­day.

Com­par­ing both league, Skeene said when you place every­thing in­to con­text you un­der­stand what is re­quired and the life cy­cle nec­es­sary for a suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball league.

Skeene said that de­spite many bro­ken promis­es, the league would con­tin­ue to sol­dier on and make rep­re­sen­ta­tion for com­mu­ni­ty grounds.

"It was al­ways part of the busi­ness mod­el sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Sport to the un­der­stand­ing that if this is pro­vid­ed af­ter a few years clubs would have no ex­cuse not to be self-sus­tain­ing and vi­able. Com­mu­ni­ty fields is a crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tor and I re­main con­vinced when put in place it will be the cat­a­lyst to take pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball to the next lev­el."

"It is about giv­ing our coach­es like Ross Rus­sell, An­gus Eve, Stew­art Charles, Earl Jean, Ja­maal Shabaazz, Mar­vin Gor­don, Richard Hood, Leroy De Leon, An­tho­ny Streete, and Kei­th Jef­frey the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work full time as coach­es just like the Jose Mour­in­hos and Ar­sene Wengers of the world.

"We must not lim­it our­selves; we are just as tal­ent­ed, am­bi­tious and in­tel­li­gent as any­one any­where in the world. The TT Pro League is the plat­form, the stage, the place, the fo­rum where we can achieve great­ness, util­is­ing and ex­pos­ing our in­dige­nous tal­ent.