The Trinidad and Tobago Super League (TTSL) is pleased to announce a commercial partnership with global sportswear brand, Umbro. This partnership will cover the period March 2017 to December 2019, with an option for renewal to cover 2019.
TTSL was established on 13 December 2016. The League applied for TTFA membership on 8 January 2017. Since that date TTSL has embarked on a course of internal institutionalization and has established a company, Trinidad and Tobago Super League Limited, to manage the League’s commercial affairs. TTSL has also established several internal committees since applying for TTFA membership.
In February, the TTSL general membership weighed proposals submitted by Lotto, Mitre and Umbro concerning these brands’ sponsorship of equipment for member clubs. Members determined the Umbro proposal to be the best. TTSL, therefore, has assigned Official Partner status to Umbro, which will provide a mix of free and significantly reduced-price equipment of various types to TTSL members.
TTSL sees this development as a major step in its evolution from a TTFA-owned competition to an autonomous, member-owned League. The offer of sponsorship from three globally recognized brands and eventual partnership with Umbro highlights the credibility of our new League and underlines its growth potential.
TTSL calls on TTFA to finally approve its membership application with urgency as the League is scheduled to begin on 11 June 2017.
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Two months to kick-off
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By Ashford Jackman (Express).
TWO MONTHS after applying for membership with the local governing body for football, the newly former Trinidad and Tobago Super League (TTSL) is still awaiting ratification but has targeted early June for the start of its inaugural season.
Details of the TTSL’s progress were revealed yesterday at a media event announcing its partnership with global sportswear and football equipment producer Umbro and its local agent, Sports and Games Ltd.
Once the TTFA sanctions it, the TTSL will replace the former National Super League as the country’s second-tier club football competition. However, interim president Keith Look Loy emphasised that the new entity would not be run along the lines of others throughout the country’s football history and would steer away from being “governed by debt and dependency”.
“We want to break that culture; we want to depart from that mode,” he told reporters. “The founding purpose of our league is to make our clubs commercially viable entities and to make the league a channel through which commercial benefit comes to the clubs.”
Look Loy said the league would accommodate 24 clubs, consisting of 14 in its top division (League One) and ten in League Two. At present, he added, 22 clubs have signed up, with the other two expected to come from the TTFA’s Champion of Champions playoff series.
As a means of achieving parity, the TTSL would share any monies earned among its 24 shareholders. Fifty per cent would be divided equally among the 24 while another 25 per cent would be shared based on league placings. The other 25 per cent would be reinvested in the running of the TTSL.
Look Loy cited Umbro’s sponsorship as another example of how club sustainability would be encouraged.
In the deal, Umbro will provide “a mix of free and significantly reduced-price equipment of various types” to TTSL members, including football kits and all match balls.
“This means that their resources could go to other areas. We have no interest in merely running a competition; that is the history of our football,” Look Loy said.
“Domestic football in T&T has long been abandoned by the authorities. The regional associations, the clubs are left to their own devices to sink, swim, succeed or fail and generally operate in debt. We want to depart from that.”
Sports and Games CEO Omar Hadeed said the move was part of Umbro’s decision to expand worldwide into new markets, including the Caribbean.
“What Sports and Games has done through Umbro is provide a number of footballs free of charge for all teams. We are absorbing the cost of some of the uniforms, with the hope that they (the TTSL clubs) eventually purchase for the youth teams.”
Hadeed linked the deal to his firm’s relationship with Look Loy’s FC Santa Rosa in the NSL last year.
“Our partnership with the newly formed Super League is testament to the success of Mr Keith Look Loy because we are investing in him. If he can run the Super League half as well as he does his own team, it will be a huge success.”
Meanwhile, the TTSL, having been established as a limited company and submitted all required documentation to the TTFA, is hoping ratification comes soon.
It plans to kick off on June 4 with a “Super Cup” between last year’s NSL league and knockout champions before starting league competition one week later.
Below is Keith Look Loy's latest letter to TTFA General Secetary Mr. Justin Latapy-George.
Dear Sir,
On 23 February 2017 you acknowledged receipt of documents I emailed to you regarding Trinidad and Tobago Super League Limited.
I now request an update on the status of TTSL’s application for TTFA membership, which, I remind you, was submitted on 8 January 2017 and remains unresolved. TTSL has expeditiously responded to every TTFA request for information but, effectively, our membership application has not been progressed by the TTFA Board of Management.
I repeat TTSL’s oft stated position that our membership application MUST, by constitutional requirement, be submitted to TTFA’s General Meeting for approval. This right does not belong to the TTFA Board.
TTSL hereby, once again and through your office, calls on the TTFA Board to submit our application to the Extraordinary General Meeting that is supposedly scheduled for March 2017, OR to call such a Meeting with the greatest urgency to settle what, it would seem, is now an unnecessary struggle for TTSL’s membership in TTFA.
I anticipate your response.
Best regards.
Keith Look Loy
TTSL
11