Resign!

“Intentionality: The state of having or being formed by an intention; the quality or state of being intentional; purpose.”

(American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

TTFA President Kieron Edwards and his Executive Committee need to find the individual and collective dignity to fall on their sword and allow Trinidad and Tobago football the opportunity to salvage itself. The Association’s woesome leadership has held office now for exactly two years and has nothing but a wretched catalogue of failure to show for its presumptive efforts. Football is in crisis, the situation is urgent and the national public is exhausted. The latest low is the 2:0 defeat of our women’s team in CONCACAF W Championship qualifying (and therefore in FIFA World Cup qualifying) by El Salvador. National teams are the battle fleet of any country and our fleet now sits at the bottom of football’s ocean. All our teams but the flag ship – the men’s selection – failed to qualify even for their respective CONCACAF final World Cup qualifying tournament. Today we are a starring in Salvadoran football’s highlight reel. Why? Because last Friday evening, El Salvador’s women wrote history, qualifying for the first time for one of the twelve CONCACAF W tournaments held to date.

In the inaugural W Championship (1991) Trinidad and Tobago finished third and have run out fourth on three occasions since, including as recently as 2014. Until last Friday we were the only country to have participated in all editions of the W Championship. That rare distinction will be no more after November 2026. We also wrote history one week ago. El Salvador is today part of our “lowlight” reel, alongside the disaster of 19 November 1989. How far we have fallen in twelve years.

To be fair, I credit our women with mounting stiff resistance but the fact is that El Salvador had more and better quality among their ranks. Their players were individually and collectively better and they were the far superior outfit. We do not have a player who brings the qualities of playmaker and double goalscorer Brenda Cerén (10), forward Abigail López (9) or wide midfielder Danielle Fuentes (7). Inevitably, the public has been subjected to the usual lamentation, empty calls for patience and protestations of our player talent. I will say it – I am tired of all that. I am tired, in particular, of hearing that “we have talent and potential” after every national team fails. So what? Allow me to share a secret: We are not special. Every country has talent and potential.

Precisely because of this obvious fact, we need to be as good as, if not better than everyone else with our talent identification and development because our population base and talent pool are smaller than those of our main rivals. Indeed, today even Caribbean countries with smaller home grown populations and talent pools than ours are rivalling us because FIFA’s regulations expand both with the extension of citizenship to second and third generation foreign born emigrants. Predictably, women’s coach Damian Briggs issued the customary plea for patience in his post-match comment, saying “Any programme that is going to have long-term success must have some sort of continuity. The El Salvador coach was with his players for six or seven years. I have had five or six months.” I am sorry. Even if true this sounds like a self-interested plea for job security. Let someone else make the point Briggs. You voluntarily accepted the job knowing your situation. Meantime, veteran defender Victoria Swift offered, “It didn’t go the way we wanted it to go, but we fought to the end…We had our challenges, but in spite of those challenges we think we did a good job. I hope that going forward we get more support.” If wishes were horses beggars would ride, according to an old Scottish proverb. Sadly, with the women’s next competition being CONCACAF’s new W Nations League, scheduled for kick off in February 2028 – two years hence – under this delinquent TTFA administration there is little hope for her wish to materialize as the Executives have demonstrated a comprehensive lack of care for women’s football. Traditionally, our women maintained a top 50 place in FIFA’s ranking, hitting a high of 38 in 2007. Having played just four matches during Kieron Edwards’ two years at the helm, the women fell to 83 in the ranking this week, their lowest placing ever.

Pearls before swine

“Do not cast your pearls before swine”

(Jesus Christ in his Sermon on the Mount)

The most acute post-match comment came from El Salvador coach Eric Acuña who hit the proverbial nail on the head saying, “Trinidad [and Tobago] has strength and speed but not intentionality. Your attack has to be more intentional.” Allow me to translate this technical comment so well coated in the language of diplomacy: “Trinidad and Tobago has qualities but attacks without plan or purpose”, which is a charitable criticism applicable to all our national teams. Acuña was speaking of on-field performance, of course, but that absence of “intentionality” reflects, is easily extended to, in fact begins with the absence of beneficial purpose among the TTFA leadership. While football consistently fails, contributing thereby to deepening national cynicism and malaise, other sporting disciplines mercifully lift the national spirit with sporadic positive results on the international stage. In recent months Trinidad and Tobago has repeated as champion of the Caribbean Youth Netball Tournament; we secured a total of 35 medals at the 2026 CARIFTA Games, finishing in second place overall with 9 gold, 11 silver, and 15 bronze medals; we won 6 medals at the 2026 Pan American Elite Track Cycling Championships, including 3 golds and 3 bronzes; and we finished third overall at the 2026 CARIFTA Aquatics Championships. Meantime, TTFA flounders under a President who evidently believes glib talk is effective camouflage on our desperate reality. In February, in the wake of our failed World Cup campaigns at every level he announced a directive to acting technical director Devin Elcock “to develop programmes to ensure that the flaws that are evident with the country’s youth teams are corrected and progress made at international competitions.” With typical myopia – because “progress in international competitions” requires broad systemic transformation that exceeds the narrow technical portfolio of any technical director – he reportedly tasked Elcock with hosting “frank discussions” between the Association, “academies”, and clubs to align their goals. Unsurprisingly, two months later we have heard nothing more of this initiative. The status quo holds. TTFA has no overarching strategic development plan; no technical development plan; no administrative development plan; no finance/marketing development plan. Premier League players remain unpaid for months; the country’s biggest and most important youth league (SSFL) – autonomous but still responsible to TTFA – is an administrative quagmire with 2025 competitions yet to be completed; and pretensions of protective justice for all have been shredded from its marquee department – Safeguarding – by its continuing persecution of suspended Shawn Cooper.

Innumerable critiques and ideas for improvement in TTFA have been advanced over the last two years, including by your humble servant. These tend to be repetitive because our football’s problems are systemic and endemic. With the passage of time officials have come and gone but systemic criticisms do remain valid if the system remains unchanged. Those who volunteer advice to TTFA’s Executive cast pearls before swine. Our football officials are impervious to criticism or counsel. We know that. But responsibility for the current crisis transcends the Association’s Executive. The TTFA membership – clubs, players, coaches and referees – paralyzed by their preference for complaint over action, do nothing to save their own game. They have not even demanded a meeting to discuss the worsening crisis. Salvation must arrive from outside, therefore. I support former Minister of Sport Ken Butcher’s call for the government to cease its financial support for TTFA. In the current circumstance of abject failure, while FIFA will continue to splash tens of millions on TTFA, failing the submission of a comprehensive strategic development plan to the Ministry by the Association, the local public’s millions should be invested by the government in sports which are producing results.

Our young people are growing up ignorant of our proud football history and the international respect we once enjoyed. Generation Z, (1997–2012) and Generation Alpha (2013–2024) know only of Trinidad and Tobago failure. This is their experience. And while we continue “spinning top in mud”, USA and Mexico U16s are playing against their England and Argentina counterparts this week in the Vertex Cup in Miami. As ever, they are building for tomorrow with intentionality. TTFA’s failed Executive should leave. The challenge is beyond them. This what honourable men would do. And they are honourable men. No?

Editor’s note: The views expressed in the preceding article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of any organisation in which he is a stakeholder.