🇰🇳 Atiba Harris' unconventional post-playing plan to boost St. Kitts and Nevis
Plus a chat with SKN's manager on their great start to WCQ
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Atiba Harris ended his playing career this offseason and is taking an unconventional next step.
Although the 36-year-old had a season left on his deal with USL Championship squad OKC Energy, Harris and the club mutually parted ways in the offseason. Harris has post-playing career planned, but it’s not in the broadcast booth or on the sideline. Harris is hoping to transition directly into football administration.
A legend in St. Kitts and Nevis, where the government renamed the sporting complex in St. Peters after him (not just the soccer field, the whole complex, which also has a basketball and a netball court), Harris is running for FA president.
“My drive is to help the overall development of football for St. Kitts and Nevis and, and the wider Caribbean,” Harris said in a phone call last month. “I always wanted to give back to my people when it comes to football.”
There have been other former players in the region who have toyed with trying to become the leader of their FA, most notably Carlos Ruiz, but typically FA presidents come from some other rung of society or when they are former players have their days on the field long behind them.
Harris wants to make the move directly from his playing career to calling the shots. The date of the election isn’t scheduled yet but by federation statues will need to take place this summer. Incumbent Anthony Johnson is leaving the post and, at least when we talked, Harris had heard a few rumors but wasn’t aware of anyone else openly campaigning for the position.
There are still T’s to be crossed and I’s to be dotted. Two of the 26 voting members (this includes each of the country’s clubs, the Nevis FA and the referees association) must put him forward as a candidate. From there, he’ll need to explain his vision and find the votes. That said, Harris is a slam dunk to be at least put forward and, as perhaps the country’s greatest-ever athlete, is probably a shoo-in to get the role as well.
Harris has a few proposals for what he wants to accomplish that are standard, though important. The father of four daughters, he’d like to see more investment put into women’s soccer on the islands. He also wants players, regardless of gender, to be better connected with the international soccer world, gaining opportunities like he did when he went to England, France and Spain for trials as a teenager.
But he also has some specific goals from his time as a professional that he’d like to see accomplished.
“One of the things that I missed, and I want to be able to assist in giving to the next generation is growing up you came to something as as a group, and then you can transition into becoming professionals,” said Harris who saw players who would reflecting on the time spent in academies in Brazil or Mexico or in youth national teams and felt a bit of envy.
“They can go into Europe and be there for each other or playing against each other. And having that story that history from the from the childhood to talk about? Well, now, they're professionals.
“I want to be able to give the kids over in St. Kitts and Nevis that dream and aspiration to go out and become solid professionals and change your life and your family's life.”
Harris’ own career stands as an example of just that. His father worked in the sugarcane fields and his mother was a vendor on the street, a wooden house with a latrine they best they could provide for their four children.
While Harris stood out from a young age on the field, even after signing a pro contract with Cadiz at age 18 he had his struggles in soccer as well. After having trouble adapting in Spain, he tried to catch on with a club England, where he had stood out during trials with Newcastle United but couldn’t get a work permit earlier in his life. This time, he suffered an injury and ended up subsisting in part on the hospitality of his aunt and uncle Lincoln and Heather Richards, Micah Richards’ parents.
There’s a gap in his Wikipedia entry, but Harris actually returned to St. Kitts and Nevis, demotivated and playing in domestic league with St. Peters again. He later moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands and played there while doing landscaping, construction and other odd jobs. A trial with Real Salt Lake in 2006 led to him being the first Saint Kitts and Nevis native to sign in MLS, and Harris was off and running for a long, successful career.
This time, he’s eager to move back home where he feels he can make the most positive change on the world, rather than staying in Oklahoma or moving back to North Texas.
“I need to be there to connect with our people and connect with our football dream so we can sell that dream and help our youths to go out and become something great if not greater,” he said.
If Harris can develop a system that allows more young people to follow his example on and off the field, he’ll go down as not only St. Kitts’ top player of all time, but also one of the most effective FA Presidents in the region.
Current Sugar Boyz standing tall
Harris has, of course, been thrilled to see Saint Kitts and Nevis’ hot start to World Cup qualification, though he said he wasn’t taken off guard by the Sugar Boyz’ 1-0 win over Puerto Rico and a 4-0 result over Barbados.
“Our players are very talented. We're very tough. We were gifted with a natural ability,” he said. “I wasn't the most talented player to come out of St. Kitts and Nevis. I had that drive, so I went for it. There were so many more gifted players over there. Once given the opportunity, they're going to be successful.
“So the results actually didn't surprise me actually thought that we could have scored more goals against both sides, to be honest.”
The positive results weren’t a surprise either for current national team manager Leonardo Neiva, who, like Harris, told me the team can take advantage of the fact it controls its own destiny and qualify to the second round of World Cup qualification.
“We need to stay focused and we can't get excited, because victories cannot cover up our mistakes,” said Neiva, but he also insisted, “Yes! We can!” when asked if the team can make it through. “Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana are favorites according to FIFA ranking, tradition and working time, but anything can happen in football. We believe.”
Neiva, is former futsal player who started his coaching career in Brazil but has since coached in Africa, Asia and won a title with Montego Bay United in Jamaica before getting the Saint Kitts job.
While he took an indirect route to the Concacaf region, Neiva feels his success has drawn attention.
“I think my season in Jamaica where we were champions helped me in the interview with the Saint Kitts and Nevis Football Association, as I also believe that the previous experiences having been champion in South Africa and Tanzania, in addition to good work in Brazil and Asia contributed to my trip to Jamaica,” he said.
His work is hardly over with Saint Kitts and Nevis, but Neiva will be hoping he and his staff will continue to make progress leaning on both domestic-based players and those like Lois Maynard or Andre Burley currently playing in the English system.
”We have only been in charge for two and a half months, and I hope to obtain good results and leave a legacy by reducing the technical and tactical distance between the local player and the overseas based player,” he said.
Saint Kitts and Nevis plays Guyana on June 4 and closes the first round of qualification June 8 against Trinidad and Tobago.
If you want even more Saint Kitts and Nevis coverage, my old friend Nathan Carr, who ran the Home of Caribbean Football blog has a more focused project tracking SKN players. The newsletter is here and it’s @SKNAbroad on Twitter and Insta.
Location, location, location
This image is still not official, but it leaked from Panama, where those matches were confirmed. Bermuda and Canada have also confirmed their venues are the ones in the image above, so we can at least consider it a good guide to where next month’s World Cup qualification matches will take place. Some quick thoughts, keeping in mind venues could change:
The teams who played in Bradenton, Florida, seemed to like it, with three teams who played their March ‘home’ match there returning once again. The Dominican Republic once again features heavily, though at the moment not as heavily as it did in March.
How Haiti is being allowed to host, despite its ban from hosting club competition because of incidents of violence in the domestic league and the fact Belize’s bus literally was held up by armed would-be robbers is an interesting question.
Another interesting question is how teams will deal with a potential four-day turnaround to host the first leg of the decisive matchups between group winners that will determine the three teams joining Mexico, the U.S., Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras in the octagonal.
Futsal good, man
I enjoyed catching some of the Concacaf Futsal Championship last week, with favorite Costa Rica topping the U.S. in the final. Still, the U.S. made the World Cup for the first time since 2008, with Guatemala and Panama also qualifying for the tournament set to take place in Lithuania this fall.