A lot has happened over the recent past that has rattled the firmament of Caribbean football.

Without belabouring what is already known, the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) has been rocked by corruption scandal after corruption scandal, which has taken down some of its leaders.

Standing on wobbly legs in the wake of the onslaught, Caribbean football sought to regain its balance.

In the process and over time, the 31-strong CFU seemingly pulled in different directions on views, principles and philosophy.

It is clear that the old way of thinking and doing business has been beaten back.

With elections due in Moscow on Monday for the presidency of the CFU, candidate Hillaren Frederick goes into the contest against acting President Randy Harris concerned that the strong bonds which once united the regional body have been loosened.

On the eve of the vote, he is still trying to make sense of it all.

“Yes, we are divided on some issues… gone are the days of trust as the members no longer trust each other. I am not sure where that came from and I am really not going to point any fingers,” he told the Jamaica Observer in a wide-ranging interview.

“Some members have gone a different route (and) I don’t know if that is from the CFU in the recent past that caused this,” Frederick stated.

At the CONCACAF presidential election of 2015, it was the first time that the CFU did not vote en bloc, moving away from tradition in split support that saw Canadian Victor Montagliani getting the nod over Bermudan Larry Mussenden.

The historic election indicated a new dawn in Caribbean football.

President of the US Virgin Islands Football Association says as a candidate, and possibly president of the CFU, his will be the voice for those who may not be inclined to speak up and out on the relevant issues.

“I am the candidate who will bring the issues to the forefront,” Frederick noted.

The former football referee says he does not support the point of view that the CFU is losing its purpose, but admitted its portfolio has been evidently downsized.

“I don’t know that the CFU has lost its autonomy and independence, but what I know is that we have lost a lot. CONCACAF has decided that instead of the CFU running their World Cup qualifying tournaments for them, they want to run these tournaments on their own… again they have the right to do that.

“I don’t know the reason why, but I think one of the reasons they said is that their resources could be utilised better because they could negotiate better packages instead of separate pieces, and that is the argument they gave us,” said Frederick.

The CFU presidential aspirant says that in a changing environment where solid governance structures and transparency have become the standard, the CFU will, and must, adapt.

“I see emails where people want the CFU to go back to how it was before, but I am a person who is adaptable to change and there is no way I would want the CFU to be the way it was before.

“We need to be transparent, we need to institute new controls because this is the type of world we are living in,” Frederick told the Observer.

With its dark past still a haunting memory even as efforts are in motion to repurpose it as a key component of CONCACAF, the CFU presidential candidate underlined the importance of the region to continue its own revival.

“What I think needs to happen is that the CFU needs to rebrand itself… we need to focus on new initiatives such as youth football, grass roots football and try to do this in both genders… we need to focus on academies and we need to select our best players and make sure that the CFU is running academies in different countries.

“The CFU needs to focus on income generation, it needs to step up on the marketing side, so once these things are done we can go to CONCACAF and even FIFA to let them know we have rebranded ourself, we have new blood,” Frederick asserted.

“On technical development, we need coaches, we need trainers of coaches, we need mentorship programmes from other parts of the world… we need to partner with them to see how we can get our homegrown coaches to get involved in training programmes with these other countries and confederations,” he added.

With the talent that abounds in the Caribbean the sky is the limit for the region’s players, and Frederick agrees.

“The world is there for the Caribbean to conquer… there is no doubt that we have natural talent here, but again we don’t have the financial resources, the infrastructure.

“We don’t have these things, otherwise we could develop our players. But once we get those things in place I want to see well-organised leagues in our countries — ultimately I want to see a Caribbean team in every FIFA World Cup going forward.

“The world is ours to conquer, but we need the assistance from our governments and from our international affiliates, and we want to make sure that once we are given those assistance, we can actually put it to good use and develop the sport the way it should be developed,” Frederick noted.

Frederick, a power plant supervisor in his native US Virgin Islands, believes that the CFU needs to advocate for a stronger and more direct voice in all processes that ultimately lead to decisions which affect the region’s 31 members.

“We have to make sure that we (CFU) are a party to the discussion… the CFU needs to be at that table and CONCACAF is made up of a number of unions and the CFU is a part of that, therefore, we need to be at that table to be part of the discussion and we have to make sure that whatever benefit (is there) is not for some of the members, but for all of us,” he stated.

Frederick, 45, shared that based on what he has been picking up on the ground, support for him as future CFU president has been swelling.

Still, he remains cautious.

“Some members have said to me that originally their support was for the incumbent, but have now said that they would give me their support… at the end of the day, the ballot is a secret ballot, so a guy can tell you anything one-on-one, but once he is in that boothe, that is what really counts.

“I am quietly confident that I will be the next president… but win, lose or draw, I will continue to be a member of the CFU and I will continue to fight for those things that are important. But at the end of the day, it’s the man who has the fight to go out there and do the work in the best interest of the countries that should win,” he said.

Frederick noted that among the issues that dog the present administration is “a lack of communication” to the general membership.

“Currently the executive committee is working on a strategic plan and there is a lot of good people working, but there is a lack of communication to the general membership and the MAs (member associations) are complaining that they don’t know.

“There was talk about a forensic audit and no one knows the outcome of the forensic audit… whether it has started or is it completed, no one really knows,” Frederick said in a concerned tone.

He hoped that the serving CFU administration would have done a better job in downstreaming information to its members.

“Yes, there are some developmental things that are happening, but there is a sense that the Caribbean is not being defended at the higher level, and if we are being defended, the members are not being told about it… it’s that kind of situation that boils down to communication,” he ended.