There is now a call for the con­tro­ver­sial Home of Foot­ball to be named af­ter David John-Williams, the de­ceased for­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent who lost his bat­tle with can­cer on last Fri­day at the age of 59.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports On Mon­day, Earl Jean, a for­mer play­er, coach and pro­tégé of the man known pop­u­lar­ly as “Prezy” be­lieves it would be ap­pro­pri­ate, as John-Williams al­ways had a de­sire to con­struct a foot­ball home in T&T, say­ing even the team he found­ed in 1999 known as W Con­nec­tion had its own home.

“There is so much scan­dal and bac­cha­nal with that but it would be nice be­cause that’s his lega­cy. Stu­ar­ty (Stu­art Charles Fevri­er, W Con­nec­tion coach) and I al­ways spoke to him about that, we said ‘Prezy’ the most im­por­tant thing for T&T is a home for foot­ball be­cause he gave W Con­nec­tion a home, so he want­ed to do the same thing for T&T be­cause he felt he was spend­ing too much mon­ey on teams go­ing to ho­tels and trav­el­ling etc.”

“He want­ed a home, he want­ed a place where the teams could come in and have a meal, and what I am proud about is that he did it in five years.

“Some­times I feel that that caused his down­fall, his death. The fall he had at the site (Home of Foot­ball), the stress from all the bac­cha­nal and the noise, but his lega­cy is the Home of Foot­ball and I know they will al­ways re­mem­ber that he gave them a home that they nev­er had,” Jean said.

In John-Williams, the stocky for­mer St Lu­cian strik­er had de­vel­oped a friend, broth­er and fa­ther, fol­low­ing a re­la­tion­ship that spanned for more than two decades. Prezy was who pur­sued him at Por­tuguese club Felgueiras and brought him to T&T. But up­on his ar­rival here, Jean lat­er be­came an as­sis­tant and con­fi­dant with key mat­ters of play­er trans­fer and man­age­ment.

John-Williams in­flu­ence on T&T Pro League

Mean­while, John-Williams al­so played a key role in up­hold­ing the T&T Pro League, Jean said, and had a burn­ing de­sire to en­sure that lo­cal clubs were com­pen­sat­ed for their role in de­vel­op­ing play­ers. As Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of John-Williams Con­struc­tion Co Ltd, Prezy’s en­try in­to lo­cal foot­ball was al­so his path­way to be­com­ing T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, al­though he was sup­port­ed on one hand and re­ject­ed on the oth­er.

“I think there was jeal­ousy be­cause when he walked in­to the Pro­fes­sion­al League, many peo­ple felt that he was try­ing to hang his hat where it couldn’t reach. They felt he wouldn’t have achieved, he was a young man try­ing to show him­self and it wouldn’t have hap­pened, but David was a spe­cial per­son, in that he didn’t re­al­ly care too much about what peo­ple felt about him.

“He had ideas and dreams and he al­ways told us as play­ers to dream big. And he showed us be­cause by build­ing this team he showed that we could achieve and he put out every­thing in that. I think there was that jeal­ousy in the coun­try about that, but a lot of peo­ple sup­port­ed him and that’s why it was so un­be­liev­able.

“A lot of peo­ple want­ed him to be­come pres­i­dent of the TTFA be­cause they saw how he han­dled it at his club, peo­ple in the coun­try said it was the best pro­fes­sion­al team be­cause of the stan­dard he set. So how you want­ed him to be pres­i­dent and then when he came in, you nev­er gave him a chance?” Jean asked.

In 2015, John-Williams got the nod for the po­si­tion of T&TFA pres­i­dent ahead of Ray­mond Tim Kee (now de­ceased) and was in­stru­men­tal in en­sur­ing that the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion de­liv­ered au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial ac­counts that would en­able it to re­ceive fund­ing from FI­FA, the sport’s world gov­ern­ing body.

John-Williams al­so spear­head­ed the con­struc­tion of the Home of Foot­ball, lob­bied with FI­FA for clubs to be recog­nised for their work with play­ers and al­so boast­ed about ne­go­ti­at­ing with oth­er coun­tries for the se­nior na­tion­al team to play in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match­es at lit­tle to no cost.

How­ev­er, Jean said John-Williams, who has as­sist­ed many peo­ple in sports and cul­ture, is un­doubt­ed­ly an icon who should be sent off in grand style.

The fu­ner­al ser­vice for John-Williams will take place on Thurs­day at the St Paul’s RC Church, South­ern Main Road, Cou­va. The ser­vice will start at 9.30 am.