IT is amazing how easily TTFF Media gets John Public to sidetrack itself from important issues by publishing one red herring after the other.

The mindless mass falls for it every time, sucking in every printed word as if the Messiah himself had delivered it. You can’t tell them otherwise because, well … you know bigots.

Quite frankly, I don’t expect them to experience some sort of epiphany after reading this but I’ll write it anyway.

After all, my journals are not for the dolt of the day but for the serious researcher of the very distant future studying the behaviour of today’s man to help his fellowmen avoid repeating mistakes of the past.

Then my purpose would have been thoroughly served.

The first thing I would like them to know is that TTFF Media is the TnT Football Federation and/or their advisors’ answer to queries on accountability from the independent media.

The concept emerged after years of independent probes from the few in the daily and weekly newspapers and even fewer in the electronic media who stood for decency in public office, honesty and what is right.

Issues too varied and way too voluminous to mention but which are readily accessible in the national archives, were invariably responded to with taller tales, character assassination and -- yes -- more red herrings.

Issues like advertising La Previsora club as being the Panama national team visiting here then lying through the teeth (then TTFA president Peter O’Connor included, although his conversation with the La Previsora official at the edge of the Arima Stadium field was interrupted for the interview in which the official said everyone in Panama and the TTFA knew it was not the Panama national team coming to play Trinidad and Tobago).

Issues like the overselling of tickets for the November 19, 1989 World Cup qualifier and the “so what?” attitude that followed.

Issues like the contracting out of national players (supposedly) to private promoters.

Issues like the setting up of new companies and the changing of the football body’s name to avoid creditors.

Issues like the football body’s ongoing impoverishment and perpetual indebtedness to one man, to whom TTFF seems to have surrendered all its money-spinning ventures -- past, present and future.

Issues like TTFF being the only national football body to stage a world football final (the World Under-17 Cup of 2001) and remain poor.

Issues like the television rights for a national team being the sole property of an individual.

The issue of the national team playing in an assortment of football gear -- from L-Sports, to Umbro to Finta to Adidas and others -- without a word being said about how much money this is worth and to whom it is going.

And of the team actually playing in Bahrain in Adidas wear and nothing being said until Adidas decided to gain Public Relations mileage when offering full sponsorship upon the team’s qualification for a finals taking place in Adidas country.

Issues, too, like the hiring and firing of coaches at crucial stages of previous qualifying campaigns as if intended to sabotage the campaigns then skilfully getting the public to question the patriotism and commitment of players.

And issues like repeatedly falsely advertising professional players coming home for friendly matches (in spite of having confirmed that certain players with marketable names would not be able to make it due to crucial stages of their leagues, injury or an agreement to come only for important matches); then, when a certain reporter discovers otherwise, threaten the likes of Nakhid, Yorke, Latapy and Lewis with exclusion should they continue to converse with that reporter.

That is where the concept of exclusion of the media came to being. TTFF (third person singular or plural, whichever way you like) decided first to instruct all officials to clam up to control what news gets out to the media.

The term, once quoted in a daily by the biggest figurehead in the history of football anywhere who refused to reveal his predictable ignorance on a burning issue, was something to the effect of “waiting till we all agree on a response instead of different people saying different things”.

In other words, no comment until it is agreed what we should tell you.

Then came the total blackout by the minions of TTFF Administration and, ultimately: the emergence of TTFF Media.

The duty of this body (the individual doing the job and drawn from among football reporters is not the issue) was not to answer questions on issues. No: that was the job suited to someone with the disposition of a bully who gives “you’d better not ask”, “my say or no way” responses laden with cries of if he (or she) weren’t Black, what he or she has mortgaged or how much blood, sweat and tears he or she has put out upwards through the night.

That was his (or her) job.

And Press conferences took a new shape. Dating as far back as the made-for-camera (only) “make-up” between Sepp Blatter and Pele “right here in TnT”, Press conferences have become a “sit, listen and write it as I say it” circus with a narrow opening for questions at the end.

Press conferences today take the form of paid, live radio coverage, question segment not included. That segment, meanwhile, is only five minutes long and chances are that the answer to one question (as roundabout and vexatious as it may be) may take up the entire time allotment for your queries and request for clarification.

If not, some “plant” in the media (whose price may range anywhere from bread-and-pudding with beer, to Johnny Walker blue, to a handful of $100 notes to a trip or stay in a five-star hotel with a platinum credit card as a toy) would derail the issue of the moment with an idiotic question of no substance.

As for TTFF Media, its job was never to answer questions but to issue to the media stories, to TTFF’s own liking. Stories the way TTFF want it put. In other words pure public relations.

Now, a school of thought here is that someone has a lot to hide when he or she rejects scrutiny by independent bodies and, instead, sets up his or her own media unit to put his or her (it, even) own spin on things, take it or leave it! Personally, I do not trust it, but that’s not the point.

The real point is whenever you see, in a newspaper story, Mr. X or Player Y “told TTFF Media” know this: That is TTFF’s version of the truth.

That is the truth, as TTFF wants it to be told.

It may or may not always harmonise with actual truth, but always it is just “TTFF’s truth”.

When, for example, you see reports (despatched by TTFF Media) that Stern John and Shaka Hislop call on government to “pay us now” know this: That story was told by TTFF Media.

They might have actually got the players to say it but two things: This is what TTFF Media wanted as a public issue at this time.

And players are more often than not compelled to co-operate.

John, for example, may remember his bad run in TnT colours, in spite of getting those crucial goals; he may be haunted by a bigger drought in club colours and feeling need for some sort of reassurance that his pick for Germany is still sure.

And Hislop, for example, has in recent times, been the reserve for both country and club. There is no question as to his ability to wear the No.1 jersey with distinction for either side.

True, he is made of sterner stuff, yet one cannot help but wonder whether his confidence would not have been jolted by the national team’s recent embrace of a fourth goalkeeper of English stock and whether, as a consequence, Hislop would have been somewhat under “duress” (too strong a term, I agree) when asked by TTFF Media for comment.

We must remember, too, that calling the younger goalie was in keeping with coach Leo Beenhakker’s stated policy to go Germany with a younger team, since the squad that qualified, he said averaged “28 years of age”.

Hislop is the oldest of the current crop (four goalies now, whereas teams usually carry three to the finals).

His father’s efforts to organise players into an association could also have an ill effect on Hislop’s selection, given TTFA’s known opposition to any such collaboration among players along with its method of treating all who stand against it.

Ask Lasana Liburd: if you’re not purchased or too cowardly to write the truth, you’re vilified.

I have had similar experiences and have never sold out or applied cower as an option.

I continue to stick to what is right.

And stand up for it.

After all, accountability should never be too much to ask, especially of those why aspire to broader national leadership.

The other players summoned to that so-called meeting with TTFF officials in London to announce that they would supposedly be sharing a mere US$1.6 million of the qualifying money in bonuses, are in no better position than John and Hislop. (Note they didn’t even ask, “when are we getting this $1.6 to share?”)

They, too, must toe the line in spite of the obvious question of what is the urgency and in spite of the glaring breach in protocol in not having yet discussed their needs with team captain Dwight Yorke. Yorke, after all, is the one with whom the prime minister, without prompt, invited discussions “at the appropriate time” as to a fitting contribution to the players by government, based, no doubt, on the players’ needs.

It is noteworthy that Yorke’s response in the Independent newspaper in England is a fitting slap-in-the-face of that TTFF Media public relations scam (which, mind you, was a direct counter-blow to Sport Minister Roger Boynes’ two letter-requests for the TTFF World Cup budget followed by his insistence that they do it over to reflect player bonuses).

Meanwhile, Yorke’s response is simply, “Not yet (re a meeting with Manning). I think the prime minister is planning something, though”.

In other words, he -- the only one who should force the issue -- sees no need to force the issue.

Actually, it is a non-issue.

But what beat me are the low standards required by John Public along with that public’s gullible nature, ready to lap up the next red herring. Still, it is my fervent hope that those in the very distant future would learn from the way we lived today.

That’s my view.