Former national footballer lashes out at national football administrators

A former national footballer, Renson Haynes, after enduring the rough sojourn of St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Vincy Heat in the recent World Cup qualifiers, has come up with some ways to help take the sport out of its current mire.{{more}}

Haynes, who is based in the USA and who played for the senior national team during the 2004 World Cup campaign ahead of the 2006 FIFA finals, believes that before any changes can come, changes must come at the administration level.

Speaking to SEARCHLIGHT, Haynes said, “I may be very blunt by saying this, but some of our football administrators are not as passionate… they are not as concerned, they are not as dedicated, they don’t care enough about football. If you are not as passionate or dedicated, or you don’t care that much, if you don’t lose sleep over what you doing, then you need to find something else to do”.

Haynes, a beneficiary of a football scholarship to a US university, also proffered that whilst development of the sport must be done on the home front, more opportunities must be pursued to have young emerging players get into more structured football programmes overseas.

“The local players, they need more opportunities… They need more opportunities to get out there and understand the game on a higher level, learn the game on a higher level. Let us be real, some of the resources are limited, opportunities are limited, so the more players we can get outside of St Vincent, whether in college playing football, will all benefit the national team,” Haynes proposed.

Haynes holds the view that the present crop of senior national players are not up to the level to compete with others, even in the Caribbean region.

“No disrespect to the local players we have, but not many of them are good enough. I don’t blame them, just all I am saying is the development process is not the best, therefore it has negatively impacted on the standard of play from our national players,” he opined.

In the immediate future, at the senior national level, Haynes wants to see a greater effort made to put the best Vincentian football talent on the field, when it comes to international matches, namely World Cup qualifiers.

Haynes suggested the hosting of an exhibition camp, preferably in Florida, where anyone from outside, who is not living in St Vin-cent and the Grenadines, may want to come and show their talent to be selected or considered for the national football team.

“We need to have that exposure, and one way to do that is to have an international relations committee, because we need to have that recruiting system,” Haynes added.

He also suggested that greater emphasis should be placed on involvement of the private sector, marketing and public relations, which he said is lacking within the current framework of the operations of the SVGFF.

Haynes, in conclusion, is of the view that a national stadium with a synthetic track is needed in St Vincent and the Grenadines, so as to provide that infrastructural lift, not only for the footballers, but for those who do track and field as well.