The United TTFA (T&T Football Association) finds itself divided after their executive released a statement on Monday evening condemning former president William Wallace's behaviour with strong adjectives namely “unacceptable”, “unilateral”, “deceptive” and, perhaps most damning was the suggestion that it “...replicates the performance of former president David John-Williams”.
Suddenly, Wallace seems to now stand alone. I can easily visualise the former TTFA regime led by John-Williams singing and dancing to all that is going on with the administration of our football. I suppose that is human nature?
Wallace's problems have all stemmed in the last week or so from the regional broadcast sports station based in Jamaica - Sportsmax - which highlighted some discrepancies involving Terry Fenwick's contract as TTFA's senior men's national coach. In addition, a deal with UK company Avec Sports which related to the sponsorship of national team uniforms was largely controversial as the terms and conditions were allegedly very undesirable to the TTFA. Wallace apologised and the contract was presented to the board after the fact.
I understand the deal with Avec Sports was struck up as there were no other offers at the point in time. Desperation should never be an excuse for going into a bad deal, however, T&T was and still is ranked 105 and when the United TTFA had come into office, the cupboard, as expected, was bare. There were no uniforms, not even for a fete match team; certain documents could not be located; there was evidence of large amounts of shredded paper in the office, and they literally had to start from scratch - not continue from an organisation that was 112 years old.
It is not the first time I have heard of organisations changing administrations in a bitterly contested election that the new personnel not only have a hard time in locating important documents, but there is no handover process. It continues to amaze me why newly elected officers do not hire a few security guards and immediately after the election results are announced, no one other than elected officers should be allowed into the office building.
The other issue to come to the spotlight is the contract given to Ramesh Ramdhan as TTFA general secretary, specifically the fact that it was for a two-year duration instead of one. Once again, Wallace has defended his decision and said he had the right to unilaterally give Ramdhan a two-year contract and chastised his team for being premature in their condemnation of his actions.
The TTFA president selects who he/she wishes for the position of general secretary. We can consider the last regime who hired one general secretary, fired him and appointed another one and the board had very little to say, as I understand from a board member, in the firing and hiring of the individuals.
If Wallace proposes that John Doe be his general secretary, he has to be appointed by the Board but once that is ratified, the general secretary reports to the president and the terms of the contract are set out and approved by the president. The president would obviously have to be comfortable with said terms. In this instance, perhaps Wallace thought that he could accomplish more by giving his general secretary a two-year term instead of one.
I recall the late Raymond Tim Kee informed me when he was TTFA president why he had appointed a particular individual as general secretary and if he was retained as president back in 2015, who he was going to appoint. Admittedly then, I was taken aback and I did say to him that surely he must go to his Board for them to appoint. He strongly rebuffed me by saying only he can propose or dismiss the general secretary and the board has no say.
However, Article 36 f) of the TTFA constitution states: “The Board of Directors shall appoint or dismiss the general secretary on the proposal of the president”. This is definitely a grey area as Article 39.3 then states “Only the president may propose the appointment or dismissal of the general secretary”.
So this subjectivity is likely part of the issue here. But was Wallace ultimately wrong to give Ramdhan, his proposed general secretary a contract for two years if, in his opinion, he felt one year was not enough time to accomplish anything? You be the judge.
I was recently told by a football fan that I should stop sticking my neck out for the United TTFA because “they are not transparent”. It matters not whether I favour the United TTFA. I felt then and still believe that the way FIFA went about this normalisation committee was wrong, unethical and unjust and I will not change my opinion to suit the rhetoric of “let's give it a chance” with the imposed normalisation committee. To do that is to turn a blind eye to a brazen injustice.
My real concern now is where does the United TTFA go from here? I have always said that when elections come around, slates are dangerous. This seems to be the modern-day norm to win elections in our major sports. It is, rather sadly, no longer about selecting the best individual who can do a job. But the way slates operate, everyone has to be on the same page; everyone has to be heading in the same direction and there must be trust and confidence, not only in one another but in the person at the helm.
It appears that Wallace now has to watch his back if some of these individuals can't sit down and sort out their problems instead of hanging their dirty linen in public. He also has to quickly ask if everyone is on the same page as him and if he is not comfortable with someone, then my advice to him is to remove the individual(s) quickly from the team or you will no longer be United TTFA but "Divided TTFA". Wallace is also learning of how lonely it can be at the top.
Editor's note: The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and do not reflect the views of any organisation of which he is a stakeholder.