Readiness is always relative

The current administrators of our football have proven that they are not up to the times, as it relates to the demands of the modern day game.

This assessment has been ongoing, but it is becoming more pronounced as this country’s flagship football team get ready for Group C semi-final stage of the CONCACAF Zone of the World Cup.{{more}}

No matter how much one wants to be diplomatic, patriotic and more so optimistic, because of the calamitous handling of what is an excuse for preparation, such feeling simply has to go through the window and the reality of our folly exposed.

We have proven that we are light years behind others in the region in what is expected at this level of the sport.

It is ludicrous and unforgiving that within the FIFA dates October 8 to 14, St Vincent and the Grenadines is the lone team in this phase of the World Cup Qualifiers who will not be engaged in any international friendly.

Ironically, we are the weakest of the lot, but have chosen to, through sheer ineptitude and lack of foresight, not make use of the period to give the players a run out.

The USA, which are St Vincent and the Grenadines next opponents, after facing Mexico on October 10 in the Confederation play-off, take on Costa Rica October 13, in a friendly international.

Mexico clash with Panama, November 14, while Honduras were set to face Guatemala, October 8 and on October 9, El Salvador entertain Haiti.

Incidentally, Guatemala will be the Vincentians’ foes on November 17 here.

Honduras host South Africa; likewise Trinidad and Tobago were down to play Panama, October 8 and host Nicaragua October 13 in Port of Spain.

Also active during the FIFA window, CONCACAF teams Canada and Jamaica meet Ghana and South Korea, respectively.

Notably, all 11 CONCACAF teams are facing worthy opponents or those which will give them a closest style, when the qualifiers come off next month.

On the other hand, our plans, as explained, are matches against the likes of Grenada and St Kitts and Nevis. Laughable, to say the least!!

Also, our preferred flimsy excuse of the players strewn all over the region, hence the logistics in getting them in one place, is as infantile a pardon for any sort of human intellect, more so those who have football savvy.

But is it that we have given up the ghost and have accepted that we don’t belong to this league; hence we are best suited to stay idle and save the few cents which are in the football coffers?

The other reason advanced for not utilizing this period is equally nondescript, as preparations should have begun, when the team got past Aruba on September 7.

From the get go, we knew that preparations are costly, so we are falling into the category of having champagne taste, but possess mauby pockets.

It is, however, not the first occasion that St Vincent and the Grenadines has reached this stage of the qualifiers, but what is different it is the worst type of “preparation” the team has experienced.

The players, as they have done before, have carried the country’s flag aloft on the field with their performance, amidst challenging circumstances, with limited resources and with an unstructured Football setup.

But as they head to round four, they have been beaten psychologically, by what is not done to them.

The best, then, our national football administrators can do, is to give the players some respect, making their efforts in some way compensatory.

This may not be possible, as it is common knowledge that what is supposed to be an executive is a mere fraction of personnel as the rickety structure is fractured because of in-fighting.

Therefore, all the pronouncements and blarney that sometimes come out from the secretariat are simple facial cosmetology, while the acne caused by poor administration remain unattended.

So, for yet another time, St Vincent and the Grenadines will be a participant in the semi-final stage and not a competitor. We will go through with obligations until next September, then pack it in until 2019, when the process cycles again.

Unfortunate, but this just the way it is and will be, if efforts are not made to change the course of the sport.