What you can do to change things.

The million dollar question. 30 years of rot and there seems to be no way to turn things around. Year after long years we see our strong players dropping like flies under the intense pressure of international competition.

We see players who have not played any proper tournament in years suddenly representing the Country. We see our associations taken over by people who only care about finding ways to siphon away the money for private gain. And we seem helpless to do anything about it.

We see all kinds of abuses but we seem to be without voice.

We try to do our work quietly. We do our own thing like come up with a training program for the juniors before international tournaments and we are attacked. We then try to do our thematics and we are attacked. We try to help some juniors to get into the senior squad by training them in our homes and we are attacked. When one of the juniors win a place in the selection for the senior squad he is attacked. When one of the juniors is seen to be gaining in strength and becoming strong, they try to ban him.

You go into the associations and bring in your contacts to help fund them you are either sacked or else your appointment is not acknowledged.

We all know what is going on. Every tournament I go to I hear more and more stories about the abuses.

Almost everyone that I speak to knows more or less what is going on but the feeling is that of resignation about being able to change things. So what can we do about it?

Let me explain the mechanics first and then I will explain to you in greater detail why I think the way I suggest will work.

All you have to do is to make known to your representatives in your own associations that you know the truth of matters and you want change and it will happen. All you have to do is to speak your truth about what you know and things will change.

Hard to believe yes? But it's true. All you have to do is to speak your truth. About what has happened to you and that is enough.

All you have to do is to raise up your hands and call the arbiter and say there has been an infringement of the rules. The point is not whether the arbiter is fair or not. The point is that you raised up your hand and demanded your rights according to the rules.

I would like to remind you here of what happened to get us written selection. We spoke up and change happened. So bring up the issues to your association leaders. They have the vote at MCF's AGM. They can vote for change. Don't worry about whether they have integrity or not. Just tell them what you know and ask for change.

But do it in the open. Don't whisper in corners. Just like you don't complain about an infringement on the board after the game. Raise your hands and ask for a ruling, ask for a decision.

In my next few postings I will explain why that alone will change things. In the meantime try it. Ask more questions. Trust me on this.