There has been much said on the state of football and sport generally in Bermuda over the last year, and I have read with much interest the views of people throughout the Island. While many of my fellow players may not agree with all of the points I will try to make, I hope it brings to light the complexities of where we find ourselves as a sporting nation, and provides some viable options for where we could go in the future.

Returning home to live after 10 years abroad has given me a few opportunities to observe the positive and negative aspects of football abroad.

Now that I am home, I look back on tours and World Cup campaigns I have participated in and lament on what I consider to be a wasted generation of footballing pedigree, of which I am a part.

As a result of what I consider to be a lack of long-term planning, the state of Bermuda sports, and more specifically football, has gone into decline. As a footballer I will primarily focus on what I know, and speak on those issues.

Listening to former players, we are regaled with stories about a 'golden age', when Bermuda was a dominant figure in Caribbean football, beating the likes of Mexico, and attracting teams such as Manchester United and West Ham to Bermuda for their offseason tours.

But we need not delve too far into our history to begin this story, as Bermuda's world ranking was as high as 58 in 1992, but saw a gradual decline in ranking over the next six years. Whether this is due to our inactivity, and effects of the 1994 Miami Seven disaster, which by the way did not even involve our senior team but members of the Under-23 national team, our national programme took a nosedive from which it has never recovered.

In 1998 Bermuda reached its all time low of 185 in the world, showing a complete failure on the part of the BFA to foster and promote the development of football in Bermuda.

Our rankings ranged from 140 to 180 over the next six years, with Kyle Lightbourne helping to lift our rankings to 107 at the end of 2006 with our highest finish in the Digicel Cup. Lightbourne was fired directly after the tournament. Since then our rankings have again slipped to 147 and one must ask the question as to how we evaluate our performance, and how we reward our national team coaches.

Kenny Thompson was named the interim coach after Lightbourne was fired, but was given no immediate plan for upcoming games and no training took place while he was the 'coach'. He quit the post and after a few weeks of limbo, Keith Tucker was named as the man to take Bermuda forward for our 2010 World Cup campaign.

The rest as they say is history. Bermuda have not performed well, and results have not gone our way.

Stories of unprofessionalism and lack of organisation reign supreme. The BFA is rushing to put together a unit, having squandered the time it really takes to get the job done.

As another opinion piece succinctly put it, Bermuda's standard has remained the same, while that of the rest of the world has caught up, and moved forward. We must remember that it is never too late for us to do the same. I think we have finally realised that we are behind, and that it is time to make some drastic changes in order to make the improvements that are needed. The question then becomes, how do we catch up?

I have heard excuses made that Bermuda is too small, that our expectations are too high, and that we realistically cannot be expected to compete with bigger countries. But when has Bermuda ever produced in proportion to its size?

We consider ourselves to be a great people, and able to punch above our weight class, and we should never use our size as an excuse as to why we are underachieving.

Performance and results are two different animals. I think the reason people were so outraged at the outcome of the 20/20 match against Guyana was not because of the result, but because of the performance. We should be proud to represent our country and perform accordingly.

This sense of pride is what I think has been lost on my generation. Whether we are more talented, better trained, better prepared than our opposition, we should never be out-hustled, because that is a matter of pride. Many players feel that they deserve to play for their national team but are not willing to do what is necessary, like attending training consistently or being drug free so that they are eligible.

A list of 60 players was put in the paper when we began training and about 20 people showed up to the first national squad meeting. What reason do 66 percent of our national pool have for not trying out for their country?

Why do we, as a country not comment on this insult to our national programme when it takes place, but only complain when we have a national team full of college players that have not produced the results we expect?

All the older, more experienced players are in the stands watching the game! How can we then blast the coach of the national team when most of the players he invited to try out for the team did not even show up to represent their country?

Carlos Alberto Parreira (former coach of Brazil) spoke about the sense of privilege his players felt being able to play for their country after winning the 1994 World Cup. We look on playing for our national team with disdain, saying "I ain't wasting my time playing for those guys."

Parreira said Brazilians had lost the sense of honour for wearing the 'yellow shirt', and that his job at the beginning of the World cup qualifiers was to regain that sense of pride in order to get the players to perform at their best.

More and more Bermudians seem to feel that we have a sense of entitlement, and do not put in the work that is necessary to earn the right to win.

They think it will happen just because we are good players. Because we are born with access and opportunity, one of our major faults is finding that 'immigrant's mentality' to work hard to better ourselves.

As a player, I find that many Bermudian footballers are 'soft'. When the going gets tough, they do not get going. In fact, our response is usually quite the opposite, we tend to bicker and complain; blaming our team-mates, who we should be supporting and trying to help.

This lack of pride and spirit in today's athletes has nothing to do with the BFA, the aptitude of one coach versus another, nor the amount of money being funded by the government. This lack of pride and spirit is a direct reflection of the type of people that we are developing as a nation.

Clarence Seedorf (Dutch footballer, currently of AC Milan) once said that people should not be surprised that there is corruption and hooliganism in Italian football, as football is a reflection of society. Football is Bermuda's most popular sport and we should look to football for a reflection as to where we are as a society.

Growing up I enjoyed attending night games, and watching Bermuda's best play at both club grounds and the national stadium. Football was very much a family affair.

Today, people refuse to take their children to watch Premier League games for fear of gang violence, or drug use at the field. This is a direct reflection of our society! We have allowed our society to stagnate, and our youth find themselves growing up in broken homes, with sub-standard educations, and much of their anger and pent-up energy is seen released at football matches.

While a high standard of football would help ease this, we also must look at the type of culture that is now part of society and seek a way to use football as a platform to improve our society and ostracise these negative influences. We can increase security and promote drug-free environments at games etc.

We ask players to play the beautiful game at the national level, when week in and week out they play on pitches where it is impossible to pass the ball on the ground. Although this may have been sufficient to produce a high performance footballing nation in the past, we must provide top rate infrastructure and programmes in order to see change in our performances and results.

Raising the quality of the local game will increase supporters' focus on the game itself, and in turn produce a more positive environment at the clubs. Our pitches are in terrible conditions, and our clubs have not upgraded their facilities in years. This should be a top priority for the new Technical Director.

In closing, I must agree with a weekend opinion piece advocating the introduction of a football and cricket academy, where talented youngsters are placed into a boarding school. I think this should be in Bermuda, either in Dockyard or St George's, where student-athletes are groomed to be professional athletes. This school would also prepare them for life outside of sport, giving them a sound education so they could attend university if they choose.

Most important, however, would be the ability to provide an environment with fewer distractions where they could focus on both studies and sport. I believe a venture such as this would be an excellent investment for our government funds, and would benefit not only the young players involved but also those who have a desire to witness another 'golden age' of Bermuda sport.