For­mer na­tion­al play­er Car­los Ed­wards sees the on­ly way for­ward for T&T foot­ball is by work­ing to­geth­er.

“The peo­ple who are as­so­ci­at­ed now, have good in­ten­tions to try and help the fed­er­a­tion, help in foot­ball im­prove but I don’t think they are do­ing a re­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to what is need­ed to be suc­cess­ful and it is sad to see how the fed­er­a­tion has just been with­er­ing away to what it is right now. At one point, T&T was the team in Caribbean foot­ball. Now, we may not be able to con­sid­er our­selves of be­ing in the FI­FA rank­ings be­cause what has tak­en place,” said the for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller.

Ed­wards, who is based in the Unit­ed King­dom made the state­ments while speak­ing with host An­dre Er­rol Bap­tiste on Is­ports on i95.5fm on Tues­day night.

"I don’t keep many tabs but the tabs that I keep, based on what I read in the news­pa­per or on the so­cial me­dia about what is tak­ing place with the As­so­ci­a­tion right now is sad, re­al­ly sad. I could have sensed some­thing like that would have hap­pened af­ter the World Cup. We took a big step for­ward for the 2006 World Cup and then we took a huge leap back­wards. I don’t think things have pro­gressed,” ex­plained Ed­wards, who re­sides in the Unit­ed King­dom and once plies his skills at the high­est lev­el in Eng­lish foot­ball while sport­ing the red, white and black na­tion­al colours for T&T in its on­ly ap­pear­ance at the Foot­ball World Cup, Ger­many in 2006.

A de­fin­i­tive high point in T&T foot­ball, which in re­cent times has seen FI­FA, the world gov­ern­ing body for foot­ball, stepped-in to run the af­fairs of T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) by ap­point­ing a nor­mal­iza­tion com­mit­tee on March 17, there­by dis­solv­ing the William Wal­lace-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Mr Wal­lace took the chance, win­ning the elec­tion but un­for­tu­nate­ly things did not hap­pen. I do wish the sit­u­a­tion is rec­ti­fied as soon as pos­si­ble and they could be back in the of­fice and try to straight­en out what­ev­er needs to be straight­ened out,” said Ed­wards, who was very sym­pa­thet­ic to­wards Wal­lace's ex­ec­u­tive which was in-charge for just over three months.

He said, "FI­FA did the right thing in ap­point­ing those per­sons to the fed­er­a­tion, to take charge of things. If the likes of (Kei­th) Look Loy and Wal­lace and they work with the peo­ple that are in charge right now we will have a bet­ter Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion. I am sure they can rec­ti­fy stuff. Be­cause at this stage, when you look at things, I think peo­ple want­ed the job and want­ed to be TTFA pres­i­dent for their ben­e­fit and that shouldn’t be. At the end of the day, you are a pres­i­dent, you are a chair­man, a chair­per­son what­ev­er it is, to do a job and you have to start do­ing the job not just for your­self but for the peo­ple and the fans, first and fore­most, be­cause, with­out the fans, there is noth­ing."

At present, the for­mer St An­tho­ny's Col­lege stand­out, who is al­so a coach at Ip­swich Town Foot­ball Acad­e­my and a play­er with a lo­cal team, Wood­bridge Town foot­ball club, point­ed that, “Play­ing for the club (Ip­swich) for five years, you are fond of the club, you're well-known, you liv­ing in the city, things been go­ing good, it was an easy de­ci­sion to make af­ter re­tir­ing from pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball to try and fit in, as a for­mer play­er at the club it was easy to get in­to the door and try to get in­to the coach­ing,” said Ed­wards.