T&T’s most fa­mous foot­baller, based on his in­ter­na­tion­al record and ap­peal, Dwight Yorke, gave a rare in­ter­view to host An­dre Er­rol Bap­tiste on Is­ports on i95.5fm Pro­gramme on Sat­ur­day.

The for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed and T&T’s foot­ball cap­tain at this coun­try’s on­ly World Cup ap­pear­ance in 2006 (Ger­many), is cur­rent­ly in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) and has been pay­ing close at­ten­tion to all that has been un­fold­ing in lo­cal foot­ball in­clud­ing when FI­FA an­nounced on March 17 that it was ap­point­ing a nor­mal­iza­tion com­mit­tee to run the af­fairs of T&T’s foot­ball, ef­fec­tive­ly re­plac­ing elect­ed pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his three vice pres­i­dents.

On March 27, FI­FA named busi­ness­man Robert Hadad as chair­man, at­tor­ney Judy Daniel as vice-chair­man and re­tired banker Nigel Ro­mano, as a mem­ber, with two more in­di­vid­u­als to be ap­point­ed at a lat­er date, to re­place the oust­ed T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) ex­ec­u­tive, that was du­ly elect­ed in No­vem­ber 2019 with William Wal­lace as pres­i­dent and in­clud­ing Joseph "Sam" Phillip, Su­san Joseph-War­wick and Clynt Tay­lor as vice-pres­i­dents, who through their at­tor­neys have lodged an ap­peal with the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) in Switzer­land on April 7.

"When it comes to foot­ball, things have to change. We have tried all as­pects of it be­fore. We know how suc­cess­ful we have been in 2006. I think foot­ball has been in de­cline for a num­ber of years," said Yorke dur­ing the in­ter­view. "I think this is the right move and we all have to get back and fo­cus and maybe think about the youth."

Yorke's sup­port comes on the back of pre­vi­ous sup­port for FI­FA's ac­tion by the T&T Pro League, the Cen­tral Zone pres­i­dent Shymdeo Go­sine and sev­er­al lo­cal coach­es and ad­min­is­tra­tors of the lo­cal sport.

"The youths are the fu­ture of the foot­ball and I call on all the foot­ballers out there who are as­pir­ing to rep­re­sent their coun­try to con­tin­ue to work hard be­cause it is the on­ly way for­ward and they must have that be­lief and hope­ful­ly, our coun­try will one day find its way back on the world stage again,” said Yorke, re-em­pha­siz­ing his de­sire to be in­volved in T&T’s foot­ball.

"I have al­ways been (in­ter­est­ed), I have nev­er shied away from that I have al­ways want­ed to play an in­tri­cate part in what­ev­er way it's pos­si­ble. I can help the young peo­ple of T&T as I have said be­fore. I have a lot of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence over the years and I feel that I can con­tribute a lot to T&T’s foot­ball hope­ful­ly."

Yorke, a for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain ad­mits that he too is feel­ing the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in Dubai, which has al­so locked down all cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors alike to pre­vent the spread of the dead­ly coro­n­avirus in that coun­try.

"It's been chal­leng­ing like for every­one else out there. I'm lucky enough I'm based in Dubai at the mo­ment so we been on lock­down for rough­ly three weeks and they're strict so we are one of the low­est in terms of the ef­fect of the virus at the mo­ment. I'm blessed that I'm in such a strict place that tries to keep this pan­dem­ic that is hap­pen­ing around the world un­der con­trol.

"I know that we are a coun­try that likes to en­joy our­selves, we like to be so­cia­ble with one an­oth­er in­ter­act­ing that way and noth­ing is wrong with it but I'm call­ing on all my fel­low Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans to make sure that they take care of them­selves and fol­low the guide­lines that are re­quired. It's well pub­li­cised and the PM has put out his state­ment, to stay at home, so­cial dis­tance, wash your hands.

"I know the face mask is not some­thing that has been broad­cast­ed but if you look at the news now the face mask is prob­a­bly the most im­por­tant thing and I know its dif­fi­cult to get hold of the face mask but when you go out, make sure to wear the face mask. It does save lives and that's what's mat­ters most so its im­por­tant that my peo­ple back home take this very very se­ri­ous and make sure and have con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­ers not just for them­selves but for the el­ders for the weak,” said Yorke, who scored 66 goals for Man­ches­ter Unit­ed.

He ad­mits that he has not re­flect­ed much on his ca­reer but knows that he has done well in terms of his play­ing ca­reer.

" I can vague­ly re­mem­ber some of the goals that I've scored but, hav­ing said that, I think my first year was just in­cred­i­ble. The way how it panned out and how it worked out. You know scor­ing 29 goals that par­tic­u­lar sea­son and do­ing every­thing else win­ning the 'Play of the Year', you couldn't ask for a bet­ter year.

"I feel that with­in that year I had some of my best goals, the im­por­tant goals for Unit­ed and even though it wasn’t a clas­sic, the first time I played Liv­er­pool at home in the FA Cup that was the one that re­al­ly stood out. It's not a clas­sic goal by any means but I saw the pas­sion and the ri­val­ry be­tween Man Unit­ed and Liv­er­pool for the years, what it meant to the fans and to have scored that equal­iz­er. You could feel the whole roof lift off that day when we equal­ized and ob­vi­ous­ly went on to win that game like in the dy­ing minute of the game.

"That was the first time I re­al­ly felt some­thing un­usu­al play­ing in the der­by and feel what that meant and of course once we won that game. We went on to win the FA cup and went on­to to win the ti­tle that par­tic­u­lar year, so 66 goals, I mean that's pret­ty good and I'm sure that all of them played an im­por­tant part at some point in those games,” said Yorke.