CFU made mess of Gold Cup qualifiers

It is to be noted that if this regular system was used, as with all previous and present FIFA qualifying league tournaments, including the present World Cup qualifier, our national team would have won its initial league tournament with the Dominic Republic and Martinique, by acquiring four points along with Martinique, but would have qualified automatically for the Gold Cup by having a superior goal difference.

Instead, the CFU decided to proceed with the most ridiculous plan of insisting that every game must have a winner, which was not only impractical for a league tournament but has caused possible avenues for match fixing and teams even deliberately attempting to lose to then qualify.

Going into the last game of the play-off against Haiti, because of this new rule, TT needed to win by two clear goals to top the group, and this twogoal win could have been in regular time or the 30 minutes extra time if the score was level at regulation time.

So because of this ridiculous format, established by the CFU, with the score tied at 2-2 with a minute to go, it benefited TT not to score, so it could go into the extra time to score two goals.

This then meant it would have been to Haiti’s advantage to allow TT to score and Haiti loses the game so it would qualify.

Had the Haiti coach known this he could then have easily directed his team to score an own goal with seconds left in the game and deliberately lose 2-3 in full time, and avoid having TT acquire a full 30 minutes to score the two goals needed.

Likewise, the TT coach may well have told his team not to score with a few minutes to go, so he would get the extra 30 minutes to score the two goals needed.

It shows this format can be manipulated, can cause match fixing and opens windows for poor ethics to ensure qualifying, which cannot be good for the sport.

TT has not qualified for the Gold Cup because administrators in the CFU decided to do their own thing, outside of FIFA’s usual league regulations, and their shortcoming should be exposed, which would ensure they do not repeat such blunders in the future.

Gary Griffith via email