De­spite the is­su­ing of fresh elec­tions by the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee last week, the sport is not yet in a safe place and will not be un­til there are changes in the peo­ple lob­by­ing for po­si­tions to lead it, Ramesh Ramd­han said yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, his en­try in­to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the sport as the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) in 2019 was short-lived, as the sport's world gov­ern­ing body- FI­FA in­ter­vened to cut short the William Wal­lace-led ad­min­is­tra­tion which had on­ly been in pow­er for three months.

Ramd­han, who was the first ref­er­ee from the Caribbean to of­fi­ci­ate in the World Cup Fi­nals (Japan-Croa­t­ia) dur­ing the 1998 World Cup in France, al­so had a short stint in the same po­si­tion with­in the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee be­fore his de­par­ture from the sport which he claimed owed un­paid salaries for sev­er­al months.

The nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, led by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, last week, is­sued an April 30 date for fresh elec­tions of the TTFA, lead­ing to the usu­al off-the-field bat­tle among ad­min­is­tra­tors.

To date, on­ly three can­di­dates - Sel­by Browne, the pres­i­dent of the Vet­er­ans Foot­ball Foun­da­tion of T&T, Ke­iron Ed­wards - pres­i­dent of the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, and busi­ness­man and South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Den­nis Lat­iff have shown an in­ter­est in lead­ing the T&T foot­ball pub­lic.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Thurs­day, Ramd­han is­sued a foot­ball card that would pre­vent all can­di­dates from even con­sid­er­ing the elec­tions, not­ing that he had 'no con­fi­dence' in any of them. He said he be­lieved that for­mer TTFA Spe­cial Ad­vi­sor Jack Warn­er was the most suc­cess­ful ad­min­is­tra­tor in T&T, and urged who­ev­er the new ad­min­is­tra­tion is, to seek ad­vice from Warn­er if they want­ed to be suc­cess­ful.

"There are not enough peo­ple in­volved in foot­ball present­ly, who could make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to change our di­rec­tion. I think we need peo­ple out­side of the nor­mal as­so­ci­a­tion and mem­ber­ship, who could im­pact foot­ball in a dif­fer­ent way. It has not worked in the past, and apart from from FI­VA vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er, who was a one-man show and who had re­sources at his hands, I think we need a group of peo­ple col­lec­tive­ly, who re­al­ly have an in­ter­est in foot­ball and not per­son­al agen­das," Ramd­han said.

Warn­er, who al­so held the po­si­tions of CON­CA­CAF and Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) pres­i­dent, has been banned from foot­ball for life and is al­so in­dict­ed on cor­rup­tion charges by the US au­thor­i­ties, who are seek­ing to have him ex­tra­dit­ed.

How­ev­er, Ramd­han said, "I think too many of our peo­ple who are in­volved in foot­ball right now have their own agen­das, it's friend­ship, it's where you from, it's all kinds of dif­fer­ent things. I can call peo­ple from out­side of the cur­rent crop of as­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers to come and re­al­ly make a prop­er con­tri­bu­tion to foot­ball."

Ramd­han said: "Any con­tri­bu­tion Mr Warn­er has to make in foot­ball will be use­ful, and I am say­ing that it is the most suc­cess­ful ad­min­is­tra­tion, giv­en all the neg­a­tives that peo­ple put on the ta­ble where his ad­min­is­tra­tion is con­cerned. I think Trinidad has seen suc­cess un­der Mr Warn­er, al­beit all that was said about him. Warn­er has a wealth of knowl­edge in foot­ball, es­pe­cial­ly in the mar­ket­ing of the game, and the way he pro­motes the game, but he didn't go be­yond it, which I want­ed him to do and set up acad­e­mies and so on and take it from the grass­roots lev­el up, but there was too much to be done at the top and he want­ed quick suc­cess and he didn't see that then."

He added, "In his point of view, it was im­por­tant in get­ting a team to the foot­ball World Cup. Peo­ple might say we have the best chance now to qual­i­fy for an­oth­er World Cup in 2026, and yes they have a pos­si­bil­i­ty of sev­er­al teams from the CON­CA­CAF re­gion that could pos­si­bly be in the World Cup, so yes we have a great chance. Be­tween now and 2026, it takes some­body with ex­pe­ri­ence, who has done it be­fore to help us down that road, and I feel that in some way, whichev­er ad­min­is­tra­tion comes in­to of­fice, they should seek out Mr Warn­er's ad­vice on how to get there."