(ATR) Victor Montagliani identifies four areas of improvement for the regional football confederation of North and Central America and the Caribbean he is calling the “Four Pillars of One CONCACAF”.The four pillars are the CONCACAF presidential candidate’s election manifesto, calling for better governance, strategic planning, investment in football and strong leadership. Montagliani launched his manifesto on March 22.“One CONCACAF is a vision for the future of football,” Montagliani says. “CONCACAF urgently needs to reform its corporate governance structure, to rebuild credibility with the football world and to position and ready the organization to deal effectively with the coming global challenges in football in the early part of the 21st century.”In order to establish good governance practices within CONCACAF, Montagliani says implementing the reforms recently passed by the confederation is priority number one. Next, CONCACAF must continue to change with the times and revise statutes as necessary to “ensure accountability and transparency”.Montagliani says step two of righting the ship at CONCACAF requires improved strategic planning in order to secure higher-profile tournaments and commercial partners. One provision of his manifesto is to bring the World Cup back to the CONCACAF region in 2026.Pillar three is investing in football first. Montagliani’s plan includes building centers of excellence for coaches and match officials as well as an infrastructure program that would provide each Caribbean and Central American FA with a lighted field on which to play.“CONCACAF must develop a new football first ethos, where football is put at the center of everything that we do,” his manifesto states. “A focused investment in football development and infrastructure is critical to lead CONCACAF into the future.”Lastly, Montagliani seeks to better the confederation with a strong leadership style. He says “leadership is about service, not about power”.“I have used this ethos to successfully lead Canada Soccer through a revamped strategic planning process that overhauled and enhanced its corporate, technical and grassroots programs, and culminated recently in the most successful FIFA Woman’s World Cup ever.”The Canadian FA chief is considered the frontrunner in what is now a three-person race to become the next president of CONCACAF. Mark Rodrigues of Guyana dropped out of the race March 17 after failing to receive the necessary support of four national federations.Caribbean Football Union president Gordon Derrick and Bermuda FA president Larry Mussenden remain in the race with Montagliani. The next president of CONCACAF will be chosen on May 13.Written by Kevin Nutley For general comments or questions, click here