The stage has been set!

Bat­tle lines have been drawn in the sand or should I say on the foot­ball fields?

The an­swer is no, this is not about foot­ball on the field of play with 22 foot­ballers giv­ing their all, de­spite on some oc­ca­sions the best in­ten­tions of some of­fi­cials (Ref­er­ees, As­sis­tant Ref­er­ees and VAR of­fi­cials) to do oth­er­wise.

As April 13 draws near, there are many who have open­ly stat­ed their fear that we are head­ing for a 'Black Sat­ur­day' no mat­ter the re­sult of this two-slate bat­tle. And the re­al­i­ty is, that is what it is, be­cause it is a pity that every­one could not work to­geth­er in the best in­ter­est of sports and have one slate be­cause this is not pol­i­tics. right?

No, no, wrong, it is and sad­ly there­in lies my fear that we are find­ing our­selves en­tan­gled in foot­ball pol­i­tics, very sim­i­lar to the red and yel­low pol­i­tics that many be­moan open­ly but sup­port qui­et­ly.

There is al­ready a strong be­lief that one group is heav­i­ly favoured by the op­po­si­tion and may not re­ceive gov­ern­ment sup­port if they win, which must not be tol­er­at­ed if true.

On the oth­er side, we are be­ing told, that this slate is be­ing tout­ed as a FI­FA team and un­less they win, FI­FA will take their promis­es and re­wards away, again this must nev­er be a con­sid­er­a­tion in vot­ing.

So, who can we trust?

We can start by trust­ing our­selves and ask­ing per­ti­nent ques­tions, such as: "How did T&T’s foot­ball reach here in the first place? What can be done to avoid that re oc­cur­rence and who should we en­dorse to achieve such?

For me, it is sim­ple, not com­plex, amidst all the chest puff­ing by some on ei­ther side, we (the peo­ple of T&T) have not heard enough on strat­e­gy, a short-term plan, a roadmap for the fu­ture and per­haps the rea­son is sim­ple. There are on­ly 57 votes avail­able so to many, it is pos­si­ble the peo­ple of T&T do not mat­ter.

How­ev­er, un­less these my­opic souls for­get, foot­ball be­longs to the peo­ple of the coun­try and if we are for­got­ten and os­tracised, foot­ball will not grow in the schools (both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary) and al­so in the com­mu­ni­ties, ul­ti­mate­ly lead­ing to no progress, no mat­ter who wins.

That is why we must de­mand to hear the lead­ers speak on their plans and meth­ods for the ex­e­cu­tion of such. We al­so need to tem­per the rhetoric com­ing from one side more than the oth­er and hope that the greater in­ter­est of foot­ball is fought out fair­ly.

If what we have been told by well-in­formed sources then, there may have been be­tray­als along the way in terms of promis­es made by one group or per­son to an­oth­er. Or maybe it was naive­ly by one vet­er­an to an­oth­er be­liev­ing that one man’s word was his bond.

Those 57 votes and those em­pow­ered with such pow­er must seek to use it in­tel­li­gent­ly and not al­low per­son­al pref­er­ences to rule good sense or mon­ey to rule in­tegri­ty or favour to rule trans­paren­cy.

As the da­ta con­tin­ues to sug­gest that it will be clos­er than many ex­pect­ed and last-minute con­scious votes may over­ride all in the end, there must be a temp­ta­tion to be wary for the next 3-6 months un­der a new ruler giv­en our his­to­ry.

As I pe­ruse the list of con­tes­tants in the rag­ing war ahead, there are some I would stay far away from even if I was giv­en a free pass and I be­lieve those in­volved in foot­ball are quite aware of the machi­na­tions of these. Nat­u­ral­ly, a per­son can change his coat and ap­pear­ance but not their char­ac­ter or his­to­ry. There is a clear and present dan­ger with some who have chal­lenged be­fore for po­si­tions and failed or pulled out be­cause they could not sat­is­fy.

So, we need to hear from Messrs Col­in Wharfe and Kieron Ed­wards about their in­ten­tions and then we can judge them sin­cere­ly for our­selves and it both cas­es it may as­sist in clear­ing any doubts in one or oth­er. Of course, if both or ei­ther one is afraid to face scruti­ny be­fore April 13, then that should be a mas­sive warn­ing sign, which I am cer­tain all con­cerned, foot­ballers, stake­hold­er’s pub­lic, cor­po­rate T&T and gov­ern­ment can de­cide ac­cord­ing­ly.

Foot­ball can­not af­ford an­oth­er pe­ri­od of tur­moil but in­stead, we need uni­ty and team­work to suc­ceed against the grow­ing num­ber of op­po­nents our teams will need go­ing for­ward.

So here are my ques­tions to both men on their prospec­tive slates and the way ahead:

1 - What did you promise to your in­di­vid­ual mem­bers on your slate? (a ques­tion which may very well de­fine how their time in of­fice will per­form in the in­ter­est of foot­ball rather than a group or club)

2 - If you lose, will you say to the me­dia that you are will­ing to work with the win­ning team but in re­al­i­ty, walk away with your team and seek to un­der­mine them?

3 - Where is the fi­nance for your cam­paign com­ing from, your pock­et or that of oth­ers (un­known)?

4 - What are your plans for Men’s and Women’s foot­ball and why should peo­ple trust you?

There are prob­a­bly a lot more ques­tions that need hon­est an­swers, not a bunch of plat­i­tudes from per­sons seek­ing votes.

It will be in­ter­est­ing to ob­serve some of what lies ahead, with many al­ready fore­see­ing a num­ber of dirty tac­tics be­ing em­ployed by some con­nect­ed to one group or an­oth­er. One has to have faith in the elec­torate on the day and those in con­trol of such on the said com­mit­tee, but that does not say, that we should not in ad­vance ques­tion and en­sure as best as pos­si­ble all votes are prop­er­ly count­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the Re­vised Con­sti­tu­tion, The Con­gress (those who can vote) is com­posed as fol­lows:

a - for each li­censed club in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier 1 for a max­i­mum of twelve (12) clubs: two votes per club rep­re­sent­ed by one del­e­gate. If the num­ber of li­cenced clubs in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier 1 is more than twelve (12), the top twelve (12) in the stand­ings of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier 1 at the end of the most re­cent T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League sea­son will par­tic­i­pate in the Con­gress with vot­ing rights as per this para­graph

b - for each li­censed club that fin­ished in the top six (6) in the stand­ings of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier 2 at the end of the most re­cent T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League sea­son: two votes per club rep­re­sent­ed by one del­e­gate. How­ev­er, a club can­not vote in both Tier 1 and Tier 2. There­fore, if this ap­plies the next Tier2 li­cenced club in the stand­ings will be en­ti­tled to vote.

c - for each re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tion: two votes per re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ed by one del­e­gate;

d - for the Beach Soc­cer As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T: one vote, one del­e­gate;

e - for the Fut­sal As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T: one vote, one del­e­gate;

f - for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion: one vote, one del­e­gate;

g - for the Uni­fied Foot­ball Coach­es As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T: one vote, one del­e­gate;

h - for T&T Women's League Foot­ball: two votes rep­re­sent­ed by one del­e­gate;

i - for Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League: one vote, one del­e­gate;

j - for Pri­ma­ry Schools Foot­ball League: one vote, one del­e­gate;

k - for the Vet­er­an Foot­ballers Foun­da­tion of T&T: one vote, one del­e­gate.

My oth­er con­cern is as fol­lows, if there is not an at­ten­dance of 57, but an even num­ber such as 56 or 54 and there is a tie, what is next?

Ac­cord­ing to the re­vised Con­sti­tu­tion, this is the an­swer for many in doubt:

- In case of a tied vote in the elec­tions of the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, two new bal­lots shall be con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with the pro­ce­dure set forth in this ar­ti­cle. If the tied vote re­mains, the rel­e­vant po­si­tion shall re­main va­cant un­til a new elec­tive Con­gress con­venes to pro­ceed with new elec­tions ac­cord­ing to these Statutes. In the case of a tied vote in the elec­tions, a sec­ond round of vot­ing shall be con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with the pro­ce­dure set forth in this ar­ti­cle. In case the third round con­cludes with a tie as well, the list will be des­ig­nat­ed by a draw of lots con­duct­ed by the chair­per­son of the Elec­toral Com­mit­tee.

So let us ob­serve and wish the best from all both in vot­ing and in ideas for our foot­ball, par­tic­u­lar­ly, on the field ideas for men and women at all lev­els.