Community and Corruption in Concacaf
Soccer takes a break but scandal never rests in the region
Let’s Get Concacafed like it was the very first time.
Estadio Léon, Guanajuato
I’ve been thinking a lot about community this week, for obvious reasons.
My typically vibrant neighborhood in Dallas is an eerie, lonely ghost town as a result of county-wide shelter-in-place orders designed to keep the Coronavirus from spreading.
Of course, it’s that same virus that has all of us in our homes watching our favorite matches of the past or binging on Netflix shows (I think I’m supposed to make a Love Is Blind joke here?) rather than at the stadium.
I want everyone to be safe and I want to stem the tide so neighbors, relatives and others don’t get stricken with this nasty virus that already has taken too many lives. So, of course, I’ll stay home as long as we need to.
But I still miss the sense of community.
Sure, we’ve done our Google hangouts and FaceTimes. My pal Zach is faithfully recreating our weekly pub quiz. I’m joining the Dallas Soccer Show for their video streaming event tonight.
Those events are pleasant distractions, but they’re obviously a far cry from actually being in community with other people - often with strangers.
The community is one of the best things about sports. The other day I was on a run and forgot I was wearing my Texas Tech work-out shirt until a Texas Tech cycling-shirt-wearing cyclist gave me the 'Guns Up’ gesture from an appropriate six-foot distance before whizzing by on the other side of the trail. I flashed it back and powered through the rest of the run feeling connected to an unknwon person in a way I hadn’t in a long time.
That’s why in the U.S., where soccer still seems like a bit of a secret, people geek out over seeing someone out and about in a team polo or with a USL logo slapped onto their car.
Mexico might be the best example, where you not only have the community fostered in Mexican cities - especially some of the smaller more regional teams like a León, Monarcas de Morelia or Pachuca - but also the deeply rooted connection Americans feel to the national team or to the club their relatives grew up rooting for.
That said, we don’t have enough community in the Concacaf region, and we don’t do enough to build the community. We need more passionate people who see this for what it is - the most important unimportant thing.
We need people in front offices to truly care not just about how many people are in the seats at the game, but how to make sure they feel like they’re part of the family.
Some of the barriers to entry are societal issues. Not everyone has the money to go to the stadium or even watch the games. In many places in the U.S. and the Caribbean, the stadium isn’t easily accessible by public transportation or even by car. The ‘soccer community’ isn’t going to be able to fix those issues by ourselves.
In many parts of the region, another sport already serves as that point of community for people. But there are ways to break through. Look at Forward Madison’s success deep in American football territory or the Panama national team becoming a symbol of the nation despite baseball dominating for so long.
Still, when I hear of our friends and colleagues in Europe and South America longing to get to the stadium again, to check in on their favorite beer vendor or the older gentleman who leans back to crack a joke after every bad call, I long for the same feeling of relevance in our region.
I don’t know how we accomplish that, and I don’t know if it’s something that can be resolved at a macro-level. What I do know is the next time I’m in a full stadium, I won’t take for advantage the camaraderie around me - the ability to high five a stranger after a goal, to hug after winning a penalty or simply to stand alongside someone as they belt out their national anthem.
Hey, look, weird things happening in Trinidad and Tobago football administration again
(Pretends to be shocked)
The ball isn’t rolling in the Concacaf region, but it seems scandal never stops.
FIFA last week removed the board of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association, just three months after William Wallace (you sure it’s not the Scotland FA? Chortle, chortle) topped incumbent David John-Williams for the role.
Amidst bank accounts being frozen and debtors stepping up efforts to get the money they’re owed, a FIFA/Concacaf audit found at least $5.5 million in debt, and the top governing body decided it had to step in.
So instead of Wallace continuing at the helm, FIFA is appointing a normalization committee which could be in place for up to two years as it seeks to accomplish four tasks:
to run the TTFA’s daily affairs
to establish a debt repayment plan that is implementable by the TTFA
to review and amend the TTFA Statutes (and other regulations where necessary) and to ensure their compliance with the FIFA Statutes and requirements before duly submitting them for approval to the TTFA Congress
to organise and to conduct elections of a new TTFA Executive Committee for a four-year mandate.
FIFA says it was a necessary step with the TTFA running “a very real risk of insolvency and illiquidity.” But veteran journalist Lasana Liburd, who founded the site Wired868, has a different perspective.
Definitely the weirdest part is that FIFA tried to put Tyril Patrick, the financial manager of the FA for the last three years when all this was going down, in charge before the normalization committee took over. Patrick declined to take the post after public outcry.
For Liburd, this seems like new president Wallace simply not wanting to ‘play ball’ with FIFA and the current football governance structure and getting booted because of it.
Not only that, but this debt wasn’t run up under Wallace, obviously, but under past administrators.
Liburd is not alone in questioning the decision and its timing.
Legendary Soca Warriors goalkeeper Shaka Hislop said last week he finds the timing suspicious and was frustrated by the decision. He offered up strong words in a Wired868 guest column.
After working with William Wallace at the SSFL (as a fan for the last four years), working with Raymond Tim Kee in bringing closure to the player dispute, and even as a player through the Jack Warner years, I was really looking forward to what the new administration would bring.
And now I feel that FIFA, working in concert with members of the previous administration, has betrayed that belief.
It feels like whatever footballing progress we have made in the last 14 years has been erased. Or maybe that is exactly the point. There are too many vested interests who benefit from our game existing in an odd purgatory—somewhere between criminalisation, at worst, and colonisation at best.
Liburd also makes the point that were the Caribbean united, things could be very different. Right now, however, there is little solidarity among Caribbean Football Union members.
Perhaps that’s exactly what administrators want, he argues. Were the Caribbean to band together and pull in the same direction, their 31 Member Associations would be able to call the shots not only in Concacaf but have significant pull in FIFA matters.
Liburd published an anonymous letter from an FA president of a different CFU country:
Football administration is a tedious task and there is a fine line between development work and political [witch] hunts. Almost all presidents and new administrations in football go through a scenario of [having to decide] if the will devote time, money and resources on the past administrations’ dealings, or concentrate on the present and future.
Based on my experience as a president, nine years now, the parent bodies don’t like those witch hunts because they are considered counter-productive to football development.
But what’s really stopping development? Poor administration or disputes. As always, the ones who seem to get hurt the most from all this back-and-forth are the young players trying to make it in the game.
Past issues like the senior women’s national team soliciting donations to get equipment and meals during major qualification tournaments made it obvious something was rotten at the TTFA even after the days of Jack Warner - but it’s not immediately clear who the good guys are in the whole scenario or if there even are good guys to root for among the suits.
If you’re intrigued by this and have 20 spare minutes, Lasana did a TV interview on the subject:
Next edition
In our next edition, we’ll start our series looking back on Concacaf legends and also talk pro/rel. Yes, it’s only taken two editions to get there. Be back in your inboxes Thursday or Friday.
Pass this to your friends, your group chat, your family members and anyone else you think needs to be Getting Concacafed.