Dear Ed­i­tor,

There will be much dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing the se­lec­tion of the team (chaot­ic and capri­cious), the match tac­tics (over­ly cau­tious, even cow­ard­ly) and the un­der­whelm­ing team per­for­mance (lethar­gic and un­am­bi­tious). Yes, Ty­rone Charles scored a mag­nif­i­cent equalis­er, but the team looked hor­ri­ble and Suri­name de­served to win. Our team be­lied their moniker–WAR­RIORS–and tame­ly con­ced­ed the match to an or­di­nary Suri­namer side.

Dis­cus­sion of the match and the team, how­ev­er im­por­tant it may be, is vir­tu­al­ly im­ma­te­r­i­al. Whether we qual­i­fy for the 2017 Gold Cup or not, last night we wit­nessed yet an­oth­er painful step in the dis­in­te­gra­tion of a team that qual­i­fied for the quar­ter-fi­nals of the 2015 Gold Cup, and the cur­rent fi­nal round of qual­i­fy­ing for Rus­sia 2018–hard­ly the achieve­ments of a small team.

To put a sharp point on it, the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the So­ca War­riors has run a si­mul­ta­ne­ous course with the com­ing to pow­er (in Oc­to­ber 2015), and the mis­man­age­ment of the TTFA (T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) and our na­tion­al teams by the David John-Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Start­ing with the de­ba­cle of send­ing two women's na­tion­al teams to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly and dis­as­trous­ly rep­re­sent us in two dif­fer­ent coun­tries, to the hu­mil­i­a­tion of our Un­der-15 girls team (22:0 by USA) in CON­CA­CAF play, through the shame­ful ex­it of our U-17 men's team while host­ing their CFU qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment, to the top­sy turvy prepa­ra­tion of our U-20 men's team, to the ridicu­lous han­dling of Stephen Hart's re­moval and the ap­point­ment of (Tom) Sain­fi­et, and on to last evening's (Wednes­day) de­ba­cle, the John-Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion has presided over the de­struc­tion of our na­tion­al teams' pro­gramme.

The John-Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion is al­so fail­ing mis­er­ably in its man­age­ment of the As­so­ci­a­tion. In­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion is as painful as pulling teeth. Tech­ni­cal pro­grammes are be­ing op­er­at­ed like na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty se­crets. Do­mes­tic leagues are be­ing left to their own de­vices and to fail with­out TTFA guid­ance and/or sup­port.

All of this is the CON­TEXT which sur­rounds last evening's (Wednes­day) fail­ure. But our trou­bles re­sult not on­ly from ad­min­is­tra­tive pol­i­tics and is­sues. The play­ers must al­so bear blame. Too many of them are too eas­i­ly con­tent and lack an aware­ness of their lifestyle and con­cern for tru­ly pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards.

Truth be told, our foot­ball is in de­cline. To save it we need a true foot­ball rev­o­lu­tion at every lev­el. Root and branch. One that is de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and from be­low. From the clubs and the play­ers and the or­di­nary foot­ball peo­ple. One that will pro­pose an al­ter­na­tive to the ab­solute dis­as­ter that is the cur­rent TTFA lead­er­ship. If on­ly we would see and act on that.

Kei­th Look Loy

For­mer na­tion­al coach