Super League clubs seek legal advice

They are con­tend­ing that be­ing non-com­pli­ant does not mean they are in­el­i­gi­ble to vote as mem­bers of the TTSL. The clubs are sched­uled to meet this week­end and will have the ser­vices of a le­gal per­son at the meet­ing.

Guaya Unit­ed man­ag­er and own­er Randy Ha­gley has been cham­pi­oning this cause, since T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent David John-Williams stat­ed in a news­pa­per re­port about three weeks ago that nei­ther Look Loy nor the TTSL could de­bar non-com­pli­ant clubs from vot­ing, and there­fore an ex­tra­or­di­nary gen­er­al meet­ing can be called as they com­mand­ed the ma­jor­i­ty sup­port from their mem­ber­ship.

Ac­cord­ing to John-Williams, "All clubs of the TTSL and the Pro League are mem­bers of the TTFA. Non-com­pli­ant clubs can­not take part in any com­pe­ti­tion held un­der the aus­pices of the TTFA and al­so can­not vote. How­ev­er, the TTSL and Pro League are not mem­bers of the TTFA and there­fore can­not vote. They are to­tal­ly sep­a­rate en­ti­ties/com­pa­nies that run a com­pe­ti­tion that is sanc­tioned by the TTFA."

He added, "As a com­pa­ny, in which shares are bought and teams are mem­bers, clubs have the rights to vote un­less the con­sti­tu­tion states oth­er­wise. For clubs to not be able to vote, they must lose their mem­ber­ship through ex­pul­sion etc."

The clubs were try­ing to en­force Ar­ti­cle 32 of the TTSL Con­sti­tu­tion which deals with re­quest for an Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing to have its pres­i­dent re­moved as they be­lieve he was not rep­re­sent­ing their in­ter­ests. Ar­ti­cle 32 states- "The Board of Di­rec­tors shall con­vene an Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing if a ma­jor­i­ty (more than 50%) of the mem­bers makes such a re­quest in writ­ing. The re­quest shall spec­i­fy the items for the Agen­da."

Look Loy ap­peared to have won round one of this con­test when four of the 15 sig­na­to­ries on the pe­ti­tion ex­pect­ed to show ma­jor­i­ty sup­port, were said to have pulled out. Look Loy's vic­to­ry al­so ap­peared to have been com­plet­ed by a let­ter from his gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Thomas which high­light­ed that non-com­pli­ant clubs could not vote.

Ha­gley in a re­lease chas­tised his pres­i­dent "Look Loy is try­ing to show him­self as this big cham­pi­on of democ­ra­cy, but his ac­tions in the Su­per League are far from such. He is claim­ing clubs who paid their reg­is­tra­tion to form this league are non-com­pli­ant. He is al­so us­ing bru­tal tac­tics to co­erce clubs to with­draw their sig­na­ture from the pe­ti­tion."

Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that mem­bers from both Harlem Strik­ers and De­fence Force have had to an­swer ques­tions from their em­ploy­ers be­cause of at­tempts to si­lence them and re­duce the num­bers on the pe­ti­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Ha­gley "Ryan Ot­t­ley has been side­lined by the De­fence Force from all foot­ball mat­ters."

Derek Ed­wards, the Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed man­ag­er said "Teams are try­ing to play a so­cial role in their com­mu­ni­ties and are be­ing pe­nal­ized for it. He is ac­cus­ing John-Williams of high hand­ed­ness but his ac­tions are no bet­ter."

He con­clud­ed, "Its as if every­one who dis­agrees with the Su­per League pres­i­dent, will be hound­ed out the league, based on some tech­ni­cal­i­ty."