Bermuda will never find success on the international soccer stage if it cannot compete on a level playing field with its Caribbean rivals, one of the Island's top administrators has declared.

Chris Furbert, president of First Division club PHC and first vice president of Bermuda Football Association, said, talent-wise, the Island was as good, if not better, than a lot of others in the region. Where it fell down was in the resources allocated to the sport.

"One thing I think we need to understand and appreciate is that football calls for commitment," a passionate Furbert said yesterday during a press conference at the BFA's Cedar Avenue headquarters. "There is no point in Mr. (Kenny) Thompson (BFA Director of Youth Development) going out and getting his players committed when we don't have the country committed behind football.

"This is my opinion, and it may not be right, but if you look at all the countries around the world that have been successful in football, it has taken money.

"You cannot have a programme that is active for six months of the year and expect to be competing with all the teams from around the world."

Furbert said if Government believed football to be "the number one sport" then it, in conjunction with the BFA and Island businesses, needed to put the necessary resources into it.

"I believe that if you want me to be on a level playing field with somebody then give me everything I need (to do that)," he said. "If we are not going to do that we are going to always fall short."

For Bermuda to do well in the World Cup, for example, the qualifiers for which are scheduled to begin in January, those players picked for the squad needed to be given time away from their jobs so they could concentrate full-time on the business at hand.

"When you want me to go and compete against the other countries that is what they are doing," Furbert said. "They are playing football on a full-time basis. They are not having to go to work for a nine to five job, knock off and then go training.

"This what is what we keep putting on our players - you have to work 40 hours a week, then you have to train three nights a week and then you have to play. It simply can't be done, your body can only take so much.

"That's why I am saying level the playing field. We level the playing field, it gives our guys a better opportunity to get to the necessary standard. Raw talent, when we look around the world we have some of the best. But when it comes to putting it together on a consistent basis we are not consistent."

Furbert said Jamaica and the USA were examples where putting money and commitment into the programme had reaped rewards.

"I would say five or seven years ago we used to beat Jamaica. But they made a commitment that this is what they wanted to do with their soccer programme," he said. "The country bought into it and they took it to another level.

"Let's use another example - the United States. Ten years ago the United States were nowhere in soccer. Why are they there now? Because the country made a commitment that 'this is where we want soccer' and they put the resources in to put soccer where it needed to be.

"Now look at the United States . . . they are one of the top teams in the world."