Richard Todd is interested in continuing as the Bermuda Football Association academy director, but only if it becomes a full-time position.

Todd has ten months remaining on his three-year part-time contract and believes the all-encompassing role requires his undivided commitment and dedication.

Although he has held initial discussions with the BFA regarding his future, he said he remains in the dark as to whether adequate resources will be made available to convert the academy director’s post into a full-time position.

“For the job to be done properly, it requires a full-time individual, otherwise we will continue to sell ourselves short,” Todd said.

“There is some uncertainty about what’s going to come next: will there be an opportunity for a full-time academy director?

“If they decide to go full time, will it be me or someone else?

“It would be very hard, considering the scope of the job description, to try to continue on a part-time basis.”

The former St George’s Colts coach has been juggling his role at the BFA with his “day job” as a schoolteacher at Saltus Grammar School, but admits that it is becoming increasing difficult to devote as much time as he would like to his role in football.

“It’s been very tough, especially when you try to balance in family as well,” the 42-year-old married father of three said.

“There’s been a lot of late nights and early mornings in the office, going above and beyond the 15 hours a week which the job description called for.

“There comes a point of balance and after two years you start to say, ‘I have to pull things back a little bit’ — and that’s where I’m at now.”

Should Todd be offered the position full time, he admitted that he would harbour some reservations about quitting his steady teaching position and, therefore, needs assurances on job security.

He added he would also hope for sufficient funds to be made available so the academy programme could continue to grow as well as enabling Bermuda’s teams to participate at international tournaments.

The Bermuda senior team has not competed at the Digicel Caribbean Cup since 2012 and will not be involved in next year’s NatWest Island Games in Jersey.

“It’s pretty hard to walk away from a set career and move in a different direction to a job that might only last a year or two,” said Todd, whose predecessors, Devarr Boyles and Derek Broadley, both held the position full time.

“However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in the job, but I would have some questions about where we were going and what the strategic plan called for.

“If I had one wish, it would be for more effort to be made in securing the funding we need at the technical level.

“We know these events [the Digicel Cup and Island Games] are coming up and we can’t wait until they get on our doorstep and we haven’t done any work to get the funding.”

Aside from the BFA’s substantial budget cuts, Todd said the second-most debilitating problem he had faced since his appointment in August 2012 was dealing with the many factions in the football community pulling in different directions.

Until the majority of the Island’s top coaches are singing from the same hymn sheet, working in harmony for the betterment of Bermudian football, he fears the national programme will risk treading water.

“It’s frustrating because I think we’re all quite negative when we’re not involved in the national programme, which creates a bad cycle,” Todd said.

“It’s easy to take potshots when you’re on the outside as opposed to saying, ‘What can I do to help and how can I be a part of the programme?’

“That’s my challenge to those coaches involved in club programmes who I know are openly negative to players and parents about the national academy.”

It is the inability of the Island’s coaches to overcome their differences, further compounded by the tribal mentality of the clubs, that points to the obvious advantages of bringing in an overseas academy director, according to Todd. The last non-Bermudian to hold a full-time coaching position at the BFA was Broadley, now the director of coaching at Knoxville Force in the National Premier Soccer League in the United States. Broadley, a former Crystal Palace academy director, worked for the BFA from 2008 to 2011.

“If the local coaches can’t come together, then it makes sense to bring in an overseas coach who has no affiliations and says, ‘Right, this is what I want and this is what we’re doing,” said Todd, who spent several years as the academy director at Vestavia Hills Soccer Club in Alabama.

“I would like to think that Bermuda has people that we can invest in and develop for the [academy director’s] position. But my fear is that it doesn’t matter which local coach you appoint, there will always be that ‘I’m not going to be involved and help because you’re there’.

“If that starts occurring, then you have to look at an overseas coach and then we will only have ourselves to blame.”

At a time when the $1.3?million Clyde Best Centre of Excellence at Gymnasium Field is nearing completion, Todd believes that it is imperative for there to be a fully functioning technical staff led by a long-term academy director.

“I think the association is working on making sure there’s adequate funding for continuity, as opposed to just handing out a two-year contract,” the former North Village player said.

“Right now a lot of the resources are being channelled into completing the Clyde Best building, which will have a huge boost for us.

“Once we start occupying that space, raising and maintaining that environment, people will clearly be able to see that this is the home of the national programme.”