‘Content, pacified, domiciled and domesticated’; Nakhid knocks CFU president’s supposed ‘subservience’ to Concacaf

“[…] How can you, as president of an organisation that controls the  majority voting bloc in Concacaf, be content, pacified, domiciled and domesticated to the point that you grovel at the feet of your Concacaf bosses?”

The following letter to the editor, in response to a Q&A with Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Randy Harris, was submitted to Wired868 by UNC senator and former Trinidad and Tobago football captain, David Nakhid:

Photo: Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Randy Harris.
(Copyright The Voice SLU)

Anyone who had the distinct displeasure of reading Wired868’s interview with Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Randy Harris would easily recognise not only the malaise and dim-wittedness that afflicts most of our CFU member organisations, but the subservience, trepidation and slave-like manner in which they—personified by Harris—speak about their Concacaf bosses.

I have absolutely nothing against Harris. I met him in Barbados during my run for the Fifa Presidency, and he was, and I guess still is, an extremely affable individual. Note carefully, I avoided the use of the word ‘man’.

How can you, as president of an organisation that controls the  majority voting bloc in Concacaf, be content, pacified, domiciled and domesticated to the point that you grovel at the feet of your Concacaf bosses?

Do we continue to fall for and be distracted by the narrative that ‘we can’t handle our own affairs’? 

Canada, the United States of America and Mexico are all part of Concacaf and deserve their place at the table; but at the head of that table? Never! Not when the Caribbean has ceded billions of dollars to the USA, Mexico and Canada, through their exclusive and predatory  monopolising of the region’s premier tournament: the Gold Cup.

Photo: Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Marvin Phillip (right) keeps out Mexico attacker Jesus Corona while defenders Radanfah Abu Bakr (left) and Jelani Peters look on during 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup action in Arlington on 10 July 2021.
(via Concacaf)

USA, Canada and Mexico now all have thriving domestic leagues, while we have to watch painfully at the domestic league in Jamaica for any semblance of parity. Should I blame Concacaf president Victor Montagliani or former USSF president Carlos Cordeiro for that? Never in a million years! 

All the devil can do is whisper, offer, bribe and lie to get you to sell out your birthright and your people. It is our home-grown, neo-colonized sell-outs who continue to concede our Caribbean patrimony for a title, a trip, a salary and a chance at tokenism. 

I’m sick of it and of them. I’ve written about it for years, talked about it for years, I put my money where my mouth is and my efforts are and ran for the Fifa presidency, because I knew we would come to this.

If we like to say that Jack Warner was not a Caribbean construct then what do we say about Harris, and all the others of his ilk?

Now, sensing that the Caribbean people will awaken to my diatribe, Fifa and Concacaf will come with some relatively meagre offering—just enough to be an opiate for the asses, and get the natives buzzing. I can sense it; almost feel it. 


Photo: (From left) Concacaf president Victor Montagliani, Fifa president Gianni Infantino, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and then TTFA president David John-Williams observe proceedings during the opening of the TTFA Home of Football on 18 November 2019.
(Courtesy Allan V Crane/TTFA Media)

And you all will take it and sit your asses back down. Because your Caribbean pride, your sense of self-worth, extends only to what party you could go, and what bumsee you could wine on.

And you’ll wonder why, after almost 25 years, you all are still talking about Dwight Yorke, Russell Latapy, Shaka Hislop and Nakhid, Arnold Dwarika, Jerren Nixon, Dexter Francis, Leroy Spann, etc. That should never be the case for Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, St Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, or any other Caribbean country.

Unless we get our Caribbean heads in order and are able to extract the maximum out of our political leverage—which for any other right-thinking people would be a no-brainer—then we can be assured of little true development: administratively and on the field. 

After a disastrous Gold Cup for the Caribbean region, which should be a wake-up call, let’s see if insipidity might be followed by reflection, then inspiration, then, at last, action that can leave a beneficial legacy for our generations to follow.

Editor’s Note: Click HERE to read CFU president Randy Harris’ interview with Wired868 on the Gold Cup, racism, normalisation and parity in Concacaf.

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About David Nakhid

David Nakhid is the founder and director of the David Nakhid International Football Academy in Beirut, Lebanon and was the first Trinidad and Tobago international to play professionally in Europe. The two-time Caribbean and T&T Player of the Year and cerebral midfielder once represented FC Grasshopper (Switzerland), Waregem (Belgium), POAK (Greece), New England Revolution (US), Al Emirates (UAE) and Al Ansar (Lebanon).

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3 comments

  1. You stop short of saying in words, David, but I want to be sure to say it to you in words: The taste of the pudding is in the eating,

    TALK is the easy part because, as you are doubtless discovering in the Senate, fine words don’t fill hungry bellies.

  2. My advice to you, David Nakhid? Get out of T&T politics; it’s not where you should be giving your expertise. You are needed in T&T and CFU football.

  3. David, you are spot on. I listened to that interview and was shocked at the non-answers, excuses and obeisance to the CONCACAF and FIFA bosses. If it was Covid’s fault, then it was “you would have to ask CONCACAF.” What has he done as CFU president? Absolutely nothing!

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