if the Technical Director is paid, no one else can be paid

The Executive of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation will not be hiring a Technical Director for its football programme soon, despite a flood of applications.{{more}}

First Vice President of the SVGFF Ian Sardine made this clear to SEARCHLIGHT last Friday.

Sardine said that the Executive’s focus at this time “is to concentrate on our youth development programme and put other things in place”.

“We have never stopped receiving applications for the job”, Sardine, also a former President of the SVGFF, revealed.

“We have been receiving applications for persons all over the world, from Asia, South America, but the most have been from Europe,” Sardine added.

Voted into office October 20 last year, the Joseph Delves led Executive soon got the resignation of Serbio Montenegro born Zoran Vranes. Vranes had been in the post of Technical Director for three years.

In January of this year, the Executive employed Englishman Stewart John Hall, but his tenure lasted six months.

Hall quit immediately after this country was booted out of the 2010 world cup qualifiers.

Not slighting the importance of such an officer, Sardine said: “There has been no shortage of applications, but we are short on funds”.

Hall was reportedly paid US$6,600 per month, while Vranes’ salary was put at US$6,000. Both received accommodation, along with other benefits.

Not dismissing the idea, Sardine said that if a benefactor comes along to fund the salary of such a person, they would gladly do so.

“We are not in a position to pay someone like that at this time”, Sardine said.

Sardine said that the Technical Director’s cost takes a big chunk of the expenditure of the Federation.

Echoing sentiments by Hall on his departure last June, Sardine said that if the Technical Director is paid, no one else can be paid, and vice versa.

But one of the applicants, former national coach Seymour “ Rollit” Walrond, is offering services at a reduced cost.

“I wrote to the President offering my services to act as Technical Director, but he has not yet answered”, Walrond said to SEARCHLIGHT.

Walrond said that part of his financial accommodation meant that he will only be paid part of the amount previously given to Vranes and Hall, with the balance donated back to the SVGFF to carry out its work.

Walrond stated: “This donation of funds is to be given priority for paying a loan for a bus to transport players and staff to and from practice and matches also when leaving and returning to SVG; for conducting and organizing coaching and refereeing clinics”.

Walrond believes it is high time that the Executive look away from the foreign Technical Directors and towards their own.

“When we start recognizing our own, stop pulling down those who are developers, then our results and country will become respectful, and asking friends to copy and implement another’s coaching philosophy is out of order.”

Sardine acknowledged Walrond’s interest in the job, along with US based Vincentians Des Morris and Patrick Horne and current national coach Roger Gurley.

The Executive’s second man said the former Technical Director, Jamaican/ American Lenny Taylor, has also indicated he wants to be part of this country’s Football once again. Taylor has had two stints at the post.

Brazilian Jorge Ramos set the trend in 1992. Trinidadian Bertille St. Clair, Englishman Jim Conway, and the Kittian born Cess Podd, and his English sidekick Aide Shaw, have made up the other imports.

Sammy Carrington and Adolphus ‘Pabits’ Davis, both Vincentians based in the USA, have previously been contracted to coach the senior national football team.