PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC:
JACK WARNER has showered tremendous praise upon the strides that Jamaica has made in regional and international football, while admonishing the state of the game in his own country.
Warner, the Trinidad & Tobago-born FIFA vice-president, was making his comments against the backdrop of Trinidad & Tobago plunging 12 places in the latest FIFA world rankings released on Wednesday to 71, while Jamaica are ranked 47th.
"When I was in Jamaica, I saw a federation that was miles and miles behind Trinidad & Tobago in terms of organisation and on the pitch, now way ahead," Warner said in an interview published on the Trinidad & Tobago Football Federation web-site.
Warner has just returned from Jamaica, where he accompanied FIFA president Sepp Blatter at the groundbreaking ceremony for a national training facility and awards ceremony for individuals that gave sterling service to the Jamaica Football Federation.
"Their awards ceremony to honour past greats was of course a function of an extremely high standard," Warner said.
"I sat there and wondered if the TTFF can do something like that at this point in time. I saw the groundbreaking ceremony for their training facility and a government giving the JFF 26 acres of land for a GOAL project in less than six months.
"I realised that it took the TTFF more than two years to have not received a similar grant from the Government of Trinidad & Tobago for a piece of land that is lying idle in Forest Reserve."
Warner also felt that the Jamaica Under-23 team was capable of getting the better of T&T's senior team.
"Jamaica's Under-23 team is about two goals ahead of our senior team and Jamaica's senior team is in orbit, where the T&T senior team will not be in some time to come," he said.
"What has caused all of this? This has come about because of the collective efforts of the Jamaican Government which ... understands the value of sport and more so football.
"It has come about because of the efforts of business sector and the fact that their players are willing to go the extra mile. All of this puts Jamaica way ahead of the rest of the Caribbean and I am extremely pleased about what Jamaica is doing."
Warner recalled how the Jamaicans were nowhere to be seen a few years ago, but have leapfrogged over T&T as the leading nation in the Caribbean Football Union.
"There was a time when Jamaica was somewhere below 100 in the FIFA rankings and T&T were in the 50s," he said.
"Today, Jamaica are in the top half and T&T continues to slide. T&T are even behind Cuba and you have to ask yourself why? If people believe that this happened overnight and this can only happen because of the weakness of the federation or because of indifference, I have news for them.
"This has happened because of neglect by particularly the Government and the business sector. This happened because they believe that sport in T&T is a fly-by-night event and a hobby.
"We must realise that sport is now a professional institution that must be nurtured over a period of time. As far as sport is concerned, we in T&T are still living in the stone-age and the others are obviously living in the 21st century or aspiring to do so."
Warner concluded that if T&T believes that help for football will come from "heaven" then they were in for a big surprise.
"We shall continue to go lower and lower until the country wakes up," he said. "They have woken up to kidnapping, they have woken up to crime and corruption, and now I hope that soon they will awake to sport."
