Awai: Look Loy's Board appointment illegal

The out­spo­ken Awai, equipped with a copy of the T&TFA Con­sti­tu­tion point­ed to the min­utes of De­cem­ber 23, 2017, re­con­vened An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) at the of­fice of the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va, at which Look Loy and Sam Phillips, the for­mer T&T Pro League chair­man was ap­point­ed to the Board.

Both were il­le­gal­ly made mem­bers of the Board as de­ci­sions re­lat­ing to ap­point­ments or dis­missals of of­fi­cers could not have been made, Awai point­ed out.

In a let­ter to all mem­bers of TTFA Board re­cent­ly he said while he was not at the re­con­vened meet­ing, he got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pe­ruse the min­utes of the meet­ing, and it re­vealed that cer­tain ac­tions and de­ci­sions tak­en were ul­tra-virus and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Though there was no need for a quo­rum, the meet­ing start­ed with 21 mem­bers with no of­fi­cer of the TTFA present ex­cept gen­er­al sec­re­tary Justin Lat­apy-George who was made to sit out­side. It was lat­er joined by three oth­er mem­bers, push­ing the tal­ly to 24 of the to­tal 49 mem­bers.

Pres­i­dent David John-Williams, who was ill at the time was ab­sent and was ex­pect­ed to be re­placed by his vice pres­i­dent Ew­ing Davis, who al­so failed to make the 8 am start of the meet­ing.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia Sports which ob­tained a copy of the Let­ter un­der­stands that Os­mond Down­er, vice-pres­i­dent of the TT Foot­ball Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to chair the meet­ing be­cause of Davis' late ar­rival, a de­ci­sion that one mem­ber of the Board said was al­so against the guide­lines of the con­sti­tu­tion.

The North East Stars boss sought to en­force Ar­ti­cle 24 of the con­sti­tu­tion which states- " As per Ar­ti­cle 24 - Quo­rum of the Gen­er­al Meet­ing Para. 3. A quo­rum is not re­quired for the sec­ond meet­ing of the Gen­er­al Meet­ing un­less any item on the Agen­da pro­pos­es the amend­ment of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the elec­tion of a mem­ber of the Board of Di­rec­tors, the dis­missal of a mem­ber of a body of the TTFA, the ex­pul­sion of a Mem­ber or the dis­so­lu­tion of the TTFA."

Ac­cord­ing to Awai, "On a mo­tion moved by Mr Sel­by Browne and sec­ond­ed by Mr Os­mond Down­er, the fol­low­ing mem­bers were ap­point­ed to the TTFA Board with im­me­di­ate ef­fect; Mr Kei­th Look Loy - T&T Su­per League and Mr Sam Phillip - TT Pro League."

He not­ed, "Sub­se­quent­ly, the fol­low­ing mo­tion was moved by Mr Os­mond Down­er and sec­ond­ed by Mr Sel­by Browne and unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved. And that mo­tion read: This meet­ing is a re­con­vened meet­ing of the AGM which was du­ly called on No­vem­ber 25th 2017 at which a full quo­rum was present and this meet­ing is a con­tin­u­a­tion of that meet­ing and has the au­thor­i­ty to elect a mem­ber of the Board.

In ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion, and in keep­ing with the min­utes of the AGM of De­cem­ber 23, 2017 (which was con­firmed by the 2018 AGM), de­ci­sions were tak­en at the meet­ing of De­cem­ber 23, 2017, which re­quired a quo­rum to be in at­ten­dance are null and void."

Awai's let­ter has since caused a ma­jor stir as he calls on the Board of the TTFA, to im­me­di­ate­ly in­ves­ti­gate the sit­u­a­tion and take the nec­es­sary ac­tion with haste and dis­patch.