Maceo Dill has hit back at suggestions by Larry Mussenden, the Bermuda Football Association president, that there is no gang problem in football.

Dill, a former youth coach and technical director at North Village, responded to the president’s remarks in the comments section of the online story on Monday after the BFA postponed games in the western end of the island following the shooting death of Rikai Swan outside the Southampton Rangers Sports Club last Friday night.

Dill reminded the BFA president of the day in 1993 when seven youth team footballers were arrested with drugs in Miami after returning from Jamaica.

He wrote: “Larry, surely you remember the Miami 7 of 1993? Didn’t our youth national team players get stopped with drugs coming into Miami?

“This was one of our most successful periods in football, and a drug culture put an end to the momentum that football was gaining, and for me we haven’t recovered yet. In fact, the drug culture has grown in football more and more, and now dominants it.”

When Andrew Griffith, a former BFA treasurer under Mussenden, weighed in on the discussion by supporting the BFA president, Dill asked him: “Have you ever considered that the low standards accepted at football clubs attracts a certain type of person into their clubs?

“Have you ever considered that using the bar as the main and only source of income attracts a certain type of person to clubs?

“Have you ever wondered why past people that were heavily involved in sports clubs, and helped establish their reputations, who are not into drugs, alcohol or partying don’t come around football anymore?”

Yesterday, Dill stood by his comments and went even further, saying the Island’s clubs needed to do more to eradicate the antisocial behaviour by players, and fans. Something he believes has led to a decline in standards and falling attendances for many years.

“From where I sit clubs in Bermuda have a responsibility to grow our communities, and largely we influence our communities as to the outcome of the citizens,” Dill said.

“I don’t think it is something that requires money, it is something that requires a standard, and accountability for the influence that we have over people’s lives.

“If you look at years ago in the English game when they had violence, they put consequences in place for people who did not uphold high standards [of behaviour].”

Dill believes in being honest with the challenges facing football. He even publicly criticised his own father, Sherwin Dill, on his tenure as president of North Village, and fell out with the club before that after challenging the executives “to do a better job than we’re doing”.

“We haven’t taught the people who come to our clubs of the [high] standards [expected],” he said. “Actually we allow the lowering of the standards.”

Dill grew up around the game at a time when the likes of Harold “Doc” Dowling laid down high standards as a youth coach at North Village.

“I come from a place where I’ve seen [high] standards, and seen us let ourselves down to a point where people don’t want to be associated with football anymore,” said Dill who now coaches at the Valencia CF Academy.

The father of a 17-year-old daughter who is into gymnastics, and a 13-year-old son who is in Boston and competes in cycling and football, Dill believes clubs are enabling antisocial behaviour, rather than trying to combat it.

“At Valencia we don’t have the best players, or win all our games, but the atmosphere, environment, and structure is what I like. We’ve all seen the antisocial behaviours going on at football matches, and we do nothing about it.

“When the problems come with it we don’t own the problems, but we have to start owning the problems so we can fix them.

“We are enabling the behaviour and it is becoming the norm. When you have alcohol at clubs with children playing, that’s not a good mix.

“They [clubs] may say, ‘but that’s how you survive’. No, in my opinion, that’s how you destroy your communities. I have a lot of people who support what I say, but that support needs to go from support to action.”