Vincy Heat players cold with football administrators

Whatever the outcome of today’s match, between the St Vincent and the Grenadines senior men’s football team- Vincy Heat and Haiti, in the Concacaf Gold Cup Qualifiers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, the executive of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation (SVGFF), will have some internal team matters to address.

This, after a scathing letter was sent to the media last Tuesday night, outlining twenty- five areas of discontentment.

Emanating from the e-mail address of Cornelius Stewart, who up until June 8, served as the team’s captain versus Cuba in the World Cup qualifiers, the release took a swipe at the SVGFF’s executive and some of its subcommittees, team manager and subtly at the team’s head coach.

The release cited among other things, that “The SVGFF seems to have no organisational structure, as well as late and poor planning practices…The Technical Committee had not proven to be able to advance football in SVG (and that) We believe and feel strongly that the SVG Football Federation Executive do not respect the efforts of us the players”.

The release contained the signatures of 21 players, who lashed out at the visas issue, which saw the team short of seven players for today’s match.

They spoke about the extremely poor way in which the Federation dealt with obtaining visas for the team to travel for the Gold Cup qualifVincy Heat players cold with football administratorsiers.

“This last minute scramble is not fit for a national governing body, when they had over a year to prepare for this…their incompetence has left the team with only thirteen available players for the match of the twenty who were to travel” the players lamented in the release.

They accused the SVGFF’s executive of having, “No real goals set for the team’s participation in the competitions…we seem to be used to enable the SVG Football Federation to draw down the funds available, which are not eventually used to provide us with the best possible conditions to prepare”, noting that “There are clear division[s] between the SVG Football Federation executive, the coaching staff, the manager and the players”.

Critically too, the release pointed to, “No set system of play or identity for the Senior Men’s football team”, and that “A balanced blend of young and experienced players must be looked at as the current structure has hampered our progress”.

The Players’ Group as they are referred to themselves, also called on the executive of the SVGFF to address their concerns over interim team manager- Renson Haynes.

“As we had said before, the current Manager of the Senior Men’s team is not fit for the job, as he does not have the players best interest at heart and do not understand his job.”

The Players Group acknowledged that their most recent results in the World Cup qualifiers were “not up to par”, but feel that for better performances to be achieved, a lot of things must change.

St Vincent and the Grenadines suffered a 0-5 loss to Curacao; was whipped 10-0 by Guatemala and went under to Cuba 0-1 in the Concacaf world cup qualifiers, played in March and June.

A 3-0 win over the British Virgin Islands in March, was the lone success for the St Vincent outfit.