Merger of football slates looms

Guardian Me­dia Sports has been re­li­ably in­formed that the merg­er is be­ing weighed strict­ly be­cause of fi­nan­cial is­sues, which have been the main talk­ing point ahead of the elec­tions.

A source with­in the elec­tion cir­cles said Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Richard Fer­gu­son has been ap­proached by of­fi­cials of both the Unit­ed TTFA slate, led by William Wal­lace and from in­cum­bent David John-Williams' team to join forces to oust each oth­ers' com­peti­tor.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Fer­gu­son's slate was re­duced by one man fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of vice-pres­i­dent can­di­date Ed­di­son Dean, of Club San­do, ear­li­er this week to join the Unit­ed TTFA. A source said Fer­gu­son may con­sid­er merg­er talks if he is ap­proached but was al­so just as ready to go it alone. The source said Fer­gu­son was aware of a ru­mour of a pos­si­ble merg­er of slates but in­tends to en­sure that the fu­ture of foot­ball is placed in safe hands.

Wal­lace's slate com­pris­es vice-pres­i­dents Sam Phillip, Clynt Tay­lor and Su­san Joseph-War­rick, pres­i­dent of the Women's League Foot­ball, while in­cum­bent John-Williams' team in­cludes vice-pres­i­dents Col­in Par­tap, An­tho­ny Moore and Sel­by Browne, Vet­er­an Foot­ball Foun­da­tion of T&T (VFFOTT) pres­i­dent.

Wal­lace said nei­ther he nor any mem­ber of his team had been ap­proached but said he would wel­come the sup­port of any team. The Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) pres­i­dent said his group has al­ways said that they can­not do it alone and would wel­come the sup­port of any­one will­ing to join them on their mis­sion.

It was just Sat­ur­day that Wal­lace joined his group col­league Kei­th Look Loy in rolling out a com­pre­hen­sive plan for how they in­tend to man­age the af­fairs of the game if they are elect­ed in­to of­fice. His plan high­light­ed glob­al sports­wear gi­ants Nike among a list of in­ter­na­tion­al spon­sors set to pump more than $30 mil­lion in­to lo­cal foot­ball should they be elect­ed.

With just about 16 days to go be­fore the TTFA elec­tions, Moore, of the John-Williams slate, said he too was un­aware of any­one be­ing ap­proached to join forces. How­ev­er, he said he would un­der­stand why the slates would want to merge.

"Both John-Williams and Fer­gu­son are the on­ly busi­ness­men who own teams and would, there­fore, see things dif­fer­ent­ly from the oth­ers."

He not­ed that mon­ey is crit­i­cal to run­ning T&T's foot­ball af­fairs ef­fec­tive­ly and as busi­ness­men they would know how to com­mer­cialise the sport.

"We must re­mem­ber that at the TTFA, we are not yet out of the woods with debt," Moore said.

"We have in­her­it­ed debt from the Ray­mond Tim Kee ad­min­is­tra­tion and it seems to be ris­ing ever so of­ten. The ad­min­is­tra­tors of the sport would have to in­tro­duce a debt-re­struc­tur­ing plan to cope with the debt while en­sur­ing pru­dent man­age­ment at the same time."

SOURCE: T&T Guardian

RELATED NEWS

United TTFA refutes claims of merger with Ferguson.
By Joel Bailey (Newsday).

THE UNITED TTFA (TT Football Association) group, led by William Wallace, is refuting any claims of a merger with another presidential candidate Richard Ferguson, as the race for the TTFA presidency heats up.

The TTFA will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and executive elections on November 24. Wallace and Ferguson are seeking to unseat the incumbent David John-Williams.

According to a media release, "(Yesterday's) Trinidad Guardian publishes an article, which talks about a possible merger by Richard Ferguson and his slate with either David John-Williams or United TTFA.

"United TTFA wishes to make it absolutely clear that Ferguson has not approached us, nor have we approached him since he declared his candidacy and began his campaign of offers," the media release continued. "United TTFA has proposed a broad programme to the football community and the entire country, which it sees as the way forward to restructure and save our football. We welcome support for that programme from any quarter but United TTFA will not MERGE with any and everyone merely for the sake of winning the election."

The media release ended, "United TTFA stands on principle and programme."