No damn dog bark

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” Joseph Stalin

Wherever people form a government, there we find the perpetual struggle between democracy and autocracy. This is a timeless story, having more to do with human nature than political “isms”.

Not to worry, I will get to the football. Joseph Stalin, born Joseph Dzhugashvili, was a key figure in the 1917 revolutions that overthrew the Russian Tsardom. “Stalin”, which means “man of steel”, joined the Bolsheviks (later called the Russian Communist Party) in 1903. He served as general secretary from 1922 onward, and was the dominant figure in the consolidation of the Soviet Union and its pre-World War II centralised economy.

Prior to becoming General Secretary, Stalin occupied a unique niche within the communist infrastructure. While intellectuals like Leon Trotsky focused on theory, oratory, and military strategy, Stalin specialised in the party’s unglamorous administrative and logistical machinery.

As Party Secretary, Stalin used his position to manipulate party appointments and promotions. He systematically filled local and regional party posts with officials loyal to him. These lower-level leaders in turn controlled delegations to party Congresses, ensuring Stalin had a reliable voting majority to outmanoeuvre high-profile rivals. Stalin-appointed officials secured his authority at the top, and in return, he protected their positions and power locally. He controlled the intersection of party administration, communication and discipline.

From this structural foundation, he sidelined political opponents in the 1920s and orchestrated the mass repressions and purges of the 1930s to create a personal dictatorship. Historians estimate that 6 million to 20 million people died as a direct or indirect result of Stalin’s dictatorship.

Absolute power corrupts, and revolutionary ideals are routinely betrayed by new ruling classes. This is the central theme of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. “Sure”, you say. “He was a communist”. Well, the so-called “democrats” also do not have clean hands.

A century later, democracy is under siege worldwide. Democratic institutions are being weakened by elected autocrats, even in established democracies like USA and Western Europe, and in parts of Latin America, where constitutions are treated as inconveniences to be skirted and elections as burdensome rituals. Examples abound of legally elected leaders using a democratic mandate to gut their national constitution, systematically dismantle institutional checks and balances, and establish permanent control over the state, its bureaucracy and infrastructure – a process known in political science as “autocratic legalism”.

Rather than seizing power by force of arms, these elected leaders engage in state capture by weaponising the law and using existing constitutional mechanisms to rewrite the rules of governance from within. This process typically unfolds through a sequence of legal and structural manoeuvres. El Salvador, India, Israel and Nicaragua provide examples of this phenomenon.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, the darling of the Latin American far-right, did not declare a dictatorship when elected. He moved incrementally, each little step couched in the language of public safety, anti-corruption or state efficiency. Security exercises normalised troops in the streets, rehearsing tactics for the siege of communities across the country, deploying brutal methods of detention and incarceration. Then came the “emergency”.

Due process evaporated, replaced by a new legal regime in which opponents (now called “terrorists”) disappear by the thousands into the Salvadoran gulag. Bukele dismantled constitutional term limits, packed the courts with loyalists, rewrote rules for amending the Constitution and gerrymandered the electoral map to favour his party. Sounds familiar? In last Sunday’s election, supporters of President Lula and his Workers Party saved themselves and Brazil from such a fate under autocrat Flávio Bolsonaro, who scurried to Miami ahead of the Brazilian courts.

“When I talk, let no damn dog bark”, Dr Eric Williams

In football, elected autocrats have refined this political and governance model over decades. So, the democrats in football must fight the good fight to protect the game from burgeoning moral squalor, and to ensure membership control over football’s operations and the treasure it commands.

In TTFA (T&T Football Association), given the promise from (soon-to-be re-elected) FIFA president Gianni Infantino to grant each FIFA member USD 25 million over the period 2027 to 2030, this may be a quixotic demand. Money buys support and TTFA members are studiously silent on the problems in our football. But they have an immediate opportunity to stand up when TTFA hosts its 2026 Congress in November. Among the agenda items are proposed constitutional amendments originating in the Association’s Executive Committee that, if passed, would sound the death knell of democracy in TTFA.

Nestled among seemingly innocuous proposals – such as where the TTFA headquarters could be located – are ideas that would give TTFA’s leaders power to determine who could challenge them; establish presidential “one-man” control over the association’s administrative machinery; reorder the voting strength of individual members and blocs; and mute the statutory voice of Tobago. Let me explain.

Membership and eligibility: TTFA’s constitution now requires all its officials to observe the statutes, regulations, decisions, and code of ethics of FIFA, Concacaf, and CFU (Caribbean Football Union). The executive now seeks to add TTFA’s safeguarding policy to that list. The constitution also mandates that members of the executive committee shall not have previously been convicted of any criminal offence or been previously sanctioned or suspended by FIFA, Concacaf, CFU or TTFA.

Sounds reasonable – except to say TTFA’s safeguarding policy and department have functioned arbitrarily since introduction. Football people have been suspended indefinitely without explanation or hearing – witness former national youth coach Shawn Cooper, who has been suspended since March 2025 without formal charge or opportunity to defend himself in any TTFA forum. Given this history, the proposed amendment holds major potential for deployment as a weapon to debar election opponents via safeguarding suspension.

Administration: The executive committee seeks to amend the constitution to give the president sole discretion in the selection of the association’s general secretary, and ultimate control over the appointment and dismissal of secretariat staff. The president would become, constitutionally, the political and administrative head of the Association. This would hand the president a legal channel to extend his political power via appointment of loyalists to TTFA’s administrative machinery. Such “one-manism” is not good for democracy.

Voting: The executive proposes to slash the voting strength of T&T Premier Football League (TTPFL) clubs from 36 to 15 votes, a whopping decrease of 58%. By contrast, an increase is proposed for bodies where the executive has more political influence, with the six regional associations ramping up from a combined 12 votes to 18, and the women’s league growing from two votes to three. Ironically, no increase is proposed for the SSFL (Secondary Schools Football League), the country’s largest and most popular football league (and functionally TTFA’s youth development programme), which would remain with one vote. Where the elite clubs now have 63% of the total vote, the executive proposal would reduce them to 35%. Conversely, the regional associations and the women’s league combined vote would increase from 25% to 49%. The passing of this proposed amendment would secure the 2030 election for whoever controls the regions and the women’s league, bodies that are financially weak and dependent on the executive.

Tobago: The current constitution requires the inclusion of a Tobago representative in the executive committee – the very committee that now wants to remove the requirement. As inaugural president of the Trinidad and Tobago Super League (2016-2020), I insisted that Tobago should have a statutory seat in the league’s Board of Directors. We paid good money to ensure the Tobago representative participated in all meetings and events. Why? Because the standard problems of local football are amplified by Tobago’s physical separation from Trinidad. A constitutional requirement for permanent Tobago representation ensures the island’s perspective is always present. For TTFA to remove it would be virtually treasonous.

“Left wing” or “right wing”, the authoritarian formula for unchallenged rule is clear: control the administrative apparatus, populate lower and judicial bodies with loyalists, manipulate the constitutional framework to “legalise” the political agenda, and sell a supporting narrative to the public. If these proposed amendments are accepted, the president would have constitutional authority to run TTFA like a personal fiefdom. Still, approval by two-thirds of Congress delegates is required, and the question is whether the TTPFL clubs will agree to the diminution of their own power, while Tobago will have to decide if it agrees to the loss of its voice in executive affairs.

It is in the nature of some people, from all corners of the ideological spectrum, to seek total power over their fellows. This the rest of us must resist.

In 1959, Martin Luther King Jr said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

We, the people, in society and in football, should never remain silent.