Vincy Heat’s Great Challenge
Vincy Heat is scheduled to feature in Group C Qualifiers of the FIFA World Cup 2022, for the CONCACAF region in March 2021. However, from the looks of things it may appear that the Vincentian team is at a stage where they may well be in much more trouble than merely ‘looking down the barrel of a gun’.
Group C includes, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Curacao, Guatemala and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Vincentians, lovers of sport, have always shown a penchant for support the national football team, Vincy Heat, but may well have no illusions about the their chances in the next phase of preparation.
The Federation
The SVG Football Federation (SVGFF), like the other governing bodies around the world, is in receipt of significant annual sums of money from the international federation, FIFA. There are monies for administration, technical and competition activities.
Efforts have been made here, as elsewhere, to use the available funding to systematically develop the sport. Over the past few years, the Federation has employed persons to serve in different capacities, albeit at lower salaries/remuneration that many of their counterparts in other parts of the Caribbean.
Importantly, from the SVGFF’s perspective, a number of ‘certified’ Vincentians have been employed to help build the sport and craft national teams at the different levels.
Suffice it to say that there are those who hold the view that the SVGFF may not have engaged the best Vincentian persons to do what is required. It is not possible for all decisions to meet with the approval of everyone in the sport or the sport aficionados at home and abroad.
The SVGFF now has its accommodation facility for training and camps in a much better position than hitherto and this augurs well for a more organised approach to developing the players who are called up for the respective national football teams.
Over the past several months the SVGFF has been fully engaged in the development of a club structure. Amazingly, the Federation was in a position to do this as far back as 1990, under the Adrian Fraser administration. However, unfortunately, at the time the Kingstown teams banded themselves together and insisted on the retention of an outdated constitutional arrangement that gave them one vote each at general meetings while everywhere outside the capital, leagues, regardless of the number of teams they represented, could only have one vote each. This was the way in which Kingstown teams retained effective control of the SVGFF and of anything that happened in it.
The Adrian Fraser administration was therefore scoffed at for attempting in 1990, to establish the very club structure that FIFA has since mandated the same SVGFF to do currently.
In essence then, the SVGFF is today, years behind where it should have been, had the football fraternity been serious enough to resist the temptation to be decidedly tribalistic, in much the same way that the country seems unable to avoid political tribalism.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly hampered the work of the SVGFF, even though attempts were made to have some competitions around the country.
Vincy Heat
The national men’s senior football team appeared to have been doing well in the Nations’ Cup, only to suffer a most ignominious defeat at the hands of Dominica playing in that Leeward island. Many seem to think that the whole truth of that ridiculous exit from making it through to the CONCACAF Cup finals has not been in receipt of a national discourse. That may well have to do with the fact that the organisation may be of the view that it is all internal. That is
unacceptable.
Covid-relief assistance
There were rumblings amongst the members of the senior team when the matter of the disbursement of the FIFA-granted COVID-19 relief assistance. Some players thought that the system used was unfair and that some who received the larger amounts may not have met the established criteria.
Some felt that the matter of the different categories of funding should have been discussed at a broader level of engagement.
Importantly, some associated with the team at the non-player level may well have been as displeased as some of the players, if only because they felt that they were not appropriately engaged in the decision-making process.
World Cup 2022 Qualifiers
Vincy Heat is involved in the FIFA World Cup 2022 Qualifiers. The change is, as always, huge, but this is not the first time and so we keep our hopes high that one of these days we will be sufficiently competitive.
Interestingly, despite all that has been said, the first World Cup engagement that this country had in the lead up to the edition of 1994, was perhaps the most memorable, even though it was not the best.
With each successive edition of the World Cup, Vincentian sport fans are hopeful for better fortunes, only to be disappointed.
In 2020 the SVGFF began preparations for the World Cup Qualifiers. At the same time, several local competitions were also in progress.
In the recent past, the national training squad was announced. Immediately, the floodgates of criticism were flung open and this is still the case today.
Selection is never easy and criticisms are to be expected.
The explanation for the exclusion of some of the nation’s better players included their absence from training as mandated by the SVGFF and the participation by some in the so called ‘bush leagues’.
Many who closely follow the sport are of the view that the stance of the SVGFF has been particularly harsh if only because too many of the better players have been omitted.
Whilst the SVGFF’s stance may be harsh, it is always a difficult moment when an organisation insists that its established rules are to be rigidly applied.
If anything, some may have still been operating on the basis that the SVGFF would never dare to finally adopt a firm stance on its own rules.
What is important is that the SVGFF cannot afford to be inconsistent. If it is now serious about adherence to its rules than it must do so across all aspects of its administration of the sport and at all times.
Clubs and their players will, henceforth, pay closer attention to the operations of the SVGFF at all levels in order to readily pounce on any deviation from established norms as per policies and the organisation’s constitution.
Preparation
Over the past several days the national sports news have been filled with information of Vincy Heat’s challenges regarding the SVGFF’s application for permission to commence training of the full training squad at its facility at Brighton.
Interestingly, whilst the news have been reporting the frustration on the part of the SVGFF, the team’s management and the players, nothing has been carried from the nation’s COVID-19 officials who were provided with the SVGFF’s proposed protocols consistent with those of FIFA.
Vincy Heat’s management and players were particularly upset. They finally received official clearance and approval of their proposal on Tuesday 23 February, several days after the submission was made and the Camp expected to begin.
The inability to have the full squad training together at the originally planned period may well have rendered the exercise of team preparation virtually embarrassing. This is exacerbated by the fact that because of the decision to omit defaulting players, several young and inexperienced players are now on the training squad. This means it is all the more ,important for them to get a chance to training together so that the requisite analysis of players’ fit, can be undertaken so that the best players emerge.
One of the major problems for the SVGFF and Vincy Heat was the tardiness in the response from the health officials.
In a previous Column, we articulated the position that across the world, in the face of the pandemic, people and governments have adopted different approaches to the practice of sport and physical activity.
Here, in St Vincent and the Grenadines, we do not seem eager to engage in consultations, except they are deemed politically appropriate. Our football team do not appear to be a priority. After all, they are only engaging themselves in frivolity, or so it may be seen by the authorities.
While our football fraternity is in ‘no man’s land’ in respect of what is really happening with regarding to their creation of an acceptable bubble in which they can train and better prepare for their upcoming challenges in the World Cup Qualifiers, their opponents have long since been in bubbles, eagerly preparing themselves to take advantage of our intransigence.
The foregoing situation is not in any way surprising.
We have consistently challenged the governmental authorities in St Vincent and the Grenadines in respect of what they spout, glibly, on the political campaign trails and in Parliament, about their love for and commitment to sport in the country. The unfortunate reality is that it is in times like these that everyone comes to know the truth.
Talk is cheap.
Kendale Mercury, coach of Vincy Heat, has made it clear to all sport-loving Vincentians that the challenges, being what they are, should afford us some sobriety in our expectations of the team in the Qualifiers.
Mercury was not belittling the team or any of the players. He was merely appealing for us all to be reasonable and to apply our critical thinking skills.
The seeming challenges even with regard to getting timely responses to their request for training rights and appropriate protocols for their training camp, speak to the appropriateness of Mercury’s comments.
Vincy Heat is already doomed to failure in so far as qualifying for the next round of World Cup 2022 Preliminaries.
The most we can and should expect from Vincy Heat is that the players give of their best, under the conditions that they had for preparation and attendant challenges.
Vincentians love sport.
Vincentians love football.
Vincentian sports fans will not abandon Vincy Heat, even if it appears that some may have already contributed to this by their tardiness in responding to the SVGFF.
