Vote your conscience, not your emotions

The upcoming elections for a new Executive of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation has boiled down to a presidential race. At the center of the fray are the incumbent St. Clair Leacock and Joseph Delves.{{more}}

The elections, which have assumed national prominence, have emerged as exhibitions of emotions, rather than serious analyses of the issues at hand.

Many have become so intoxicated with their support of either candidate that all we have had in the past week was an avalanche of cross talk.

Deliberately or by accident, pertinent issues have been side stepped. Whether the sport has progressed or regressed means nothing to many.

What then are the critical issues that confront the football fraternity and the affiliates going into tomorrow’s meeting?

No one seems willing to examine the report card of the executive for the past years.

What has been achieved? Was the outgoing executive able to fulfill its mandate of moving football forward?

The past executive was plagued by allegations of misdirecting the annual FIFA Funds, with little financial prudence exercised.

The high cost of rent for the Football Office, the exorbitant telephone bills in an era when there is e-mail, internet phones and other advances in technology, the keepers of the national football purse have failed in this regard.

With Leacock heading the executive, and his virtues and accomplishments in the area of financial management, did he bring his business acumen to bear on the day to day operations?

The fact that in 2007 footballers are still given free reign to play here, there and everywhere again showed that the executive failed to put a handle on the sport at the league level.

The on the field results of the senior team, Vincy Heat, which beat both Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica, and the exceptionally good display against power house Mexico, are some of the pluses. Are the affiliates satisfied with the sparse good show, instead of a methodical approach towards development? We are still without a football product that will readily forge partnerships with corporate St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Can Delves and his slate reverse the trends, instill public and corporate confidence so that the country can maximise the commercial potential of football?

Does he have what it takes to skillfully get everyone on board and really help football?

But the last few days have done more harm than good, as it was characterised by mud-slinging and character assassination by both camps.

Leacock, himself got embroiled in the affair. His scathing attack on members of his outgoing executive came over as an act of desperation.

Ironically, and at the same time baffling, it was the same Leacock who boasted how efficient his executive members were.

Singing a different tune, the once anointed cohorts, Leacock has deemed them as incompetent and not credible.

It can only be deduced that whatever strides were made in the last four years were achieved solely on the strength of Leacock’s credentials.

Interestingly, only Leopold Dopwell, who challenged Leacock at the 2003 elections, but who was co-opted , then elevated to the post of First Vice President, has been retained on Leacock’s slate.

Of interest, too, is that five members of the outing set up are contesting the post of Second Vice President.

The developments leading up to the elections, with the alleged changing of the locks at the football office and the apparent snubbing of General Secretary Earl Bennett in the electoral process do not augur well for the democratisation of the elections.

The emergence of ‘fly by night’ units, called affiliates, has found themselves eligible to vote. This certainly could be a contentious issue at this Saturday’s meeting.

Would football survive after this episode? Would we better or worse after Saturday’s meeting?

Whatever the result, whether Leacock is returned or Delves is given an opportunity to show his wares on football administration, what we have experienced in the past few weeks has blown away any thoughts of reasoning and poise.

The dirt that was thrown will forever stain the emotional apparel of those to whom it was targetted.

Healing, I know, will be difficult, and by the next four years, the wheel will be re-invented.

The wheel seems not to be turning at the Sion Hill Playing Field, as the Longest Organising Committee(LOC) is not budging at their insistence of keeping the mound at the field.