United Group vs David John-Williams Nov 24

The date was an­nounced on Sun­day at the of­fice of the Home of Foot­ball in Bal­main, Cou­va, now of­fi­cial­ly clear­ing the way for par­ties in­ter­est­ed in tak­ing over the lead­er­ship of the sport of foot­ball to get their slates to­geth­er.

At present, in­cum­bent pres­i­dent David John-Williams is on­ly set to be chal­lenged by a unit­ed group, com­pris­ing Kei­th Look Loy, the T&T Su­per League pres­i­dent, An­tho­ny Har­ford, the North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, William Wal­lace, the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) pres­i­dent, Ray­mond Tim Kee, the for­mer T&TFA pres­i­dent and Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CFA) pres­i­dent Shymdeo Go­sine, among many oth­ers.

Strange­ly those mem­bers were ini­tial­ly ex­pect­ed to con­test the elec­tions in­di­vid­u­al­ly, but have in­stead de­cid­ed to join forces to oust John-Williams, say­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Ju­ly, that it was a bold move to save foot­ball in T&T.

On Mon­day, Har­ford told Guardian Me­dia Sports that his group is still to meet to de­cide on the per­sons that will be con­test­ing the dif­fer­ent po­si­tions. "We were wait­ing for the date to be called. I have not yet con­tact­ed any mem­ber of the group but we will de­cide on the po­si­tions clos­er to the nom­i­na­tion date," Har­ford said.

The NFA boss re­signed his po­si­tion on a com­mis­sion ap­point­ed by the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion to put in­to ef­fect some rec­om­men­da­tions by UE­FA and FI­FA, that was de­signed to trans­form T&T's top-flight foot­ball league in­to a tour­na­ment sim­i­lar to the Eu­ro­pean leagues.

Af­ter the trans­for­ma­tion, the T&T tour­na­ment was ex­pect­ed to be called the 'T-League', but prob­lems to se­cure mon­ey from Gov­ern­ment and the FI­FA in time pre­vent­ed the T-League from ma­te­ri­al­is­ing.

A re­lease from the TTFA on Mon­day stat­ed that the for­mal con­vo­ca­tion shall be made in writ­ing no lat­er Sun­day, No­vem­ber 10, 2019, which in­cludes the agen­da, the ac­tiv­i­ty re­port, the fi­nan­cial state­ments, the in­de­pen­dent ex­ter­nal au­di­tor's re­port, and the min­utes of the last an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, as well as any oth­er rel­e­vant doc­u­ments.

The po­si­tions of pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dents will be con­test­ed. How­ev­er, can­di­dates are re­quired to sub­mit their doc­u­ments to the gen­er­al sec­re­tari­at in writ­ing no lat­er than Tues­day 15 Oc­to­ber. "Can­di­dates for the of­fice of pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dents of the Board of Di­rec­tors must be sup­port­ed by at least one mem­ber. Mem­bers are asked to sub­mit their Del­e­gates as per the TTFA Con­sti­tu­tion, Ar­ti­cle 22, ap­point­ed or elect­ed by their ap­pro­pri­ate bod­ies to the gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at, no lat­er than Thurs­day 31, Oc­to­ber," the re­lease said.

It was al­so re­quest­ed any pro­pos­al that a mem­ber wish­es to sub­mit to the gen­er­al meet­ing, shall be sent to the gen­er­al sec­re­tari­at in writ­ing, with a brief ex­pla­na­tion no lat­er than Tues­day 15 Oc­to­ber.

Those ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate with votes are the pres­i­dents, vice pres­i­dents, Schools Leagues (Pri­ma­ry/Sec­ondary), Pro League and T&T Su­per League mem­bers, Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion, Re­gion­al As­so­ci­a­tions, T&T Beach Soc­cer As­so­ci­a­tion, WoLF and the Vet­er­an Foot­ball Foun­da­tion.

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No decision on TTFA presidential candidate.
By Jelani Beckles (Newsday).

THE United Slate, including vocal TT Super League president Keith Look Loy and Northern Football Association president Anthony Harford, has not made a decision yet on who will aim to unseat current TT Football Association (TTFA) president David John-Williams at the elections, on November 24. However, the group remains committed and will unveil their plans for T&T football after nomination deadline on October 15.

In July, Look Loy and Harford, along with presidents of various football bodies in T&T announced that they planned to form the united slate in order to save T&T football from further despair.

Some of the other members of the United Slate are former president of the TTFA Raymond Tim Kee, president of the TT Women’s League Football Susan Joseph-Warrick, president of the Central Football Association Shymdeo Gosine, president of the Secondary Schools Football League William Wallace and former TT Pro League chairman Sam Phillip.

Harford said the United Slate has been busy formulating plans leading up to the elections. “We have been focussed on trying to do some research on what we feel will be required to bring some stability back to the football. We have made no decision (on who is going up for presidency.) The one decision we made is that whoever from the group is selected to be the president – the rest of us will support that person.”

Harford said they will give more details on their plans after October 15. “We want to unveil what our plans are after the nomination when we are introducing our candidates. We have actually formulated some plans...all our delegates have committed themselves fully to being faithful to the stakeholders and to the game.”

Look Loy has stated he would not put his name up for elections, but he is in full support of the United Slate and whoever attempts to unseat John-Williams.

Look Loy said, “I will support them. I am helping to, along with others, obviously prepare the platform of the group...and I will be helping them to campaign, to speak to people and to leaders in the other areas of football. I will be very active, I just don’t want a post.” The TT Super League president said meetings are held constantly. “We have been meeting regularly ever since. We won’t start now, that has been an ongoing process.” Local stakeholders and TTFA members have criticised the TTFA and its president for their decisions. They have questioned the transparency and accountability including the lack of information concerning the construction of the Home of Football in Couva. Attempts to contact John-Williams proved futile.