Suspended TTSL clubs threaten legal action

And one mem­ber has open­ly called on his col­leagues to throw their sup­port be­hind Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Richard Fer­gu­son, whose ac­tions to date, he said, have been an ex­am­ple of what should hap­pen in lo­cal foot­ball for it to progress.

Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre, Harlem Strik­ers, Phoenix FC and 500 Spar­tans, among oth­er clubs, were in­formed Sun­day that they had been sus­pend­ed as mem­bers and share­hold­ers when they showed up for the TTSL AGM. Guaya Unit­ed boss Randy Ha­gley al­so was not al­lowed en­try in­to the meet­ing had to threat­en le­gal ac­tion be­fore be­ing giv­en en­try and al­so be­ing al­lowed to vote.

Yes­ter­day, two days af­ter the meet­ing, Mara­bel­la FCC's Ter­rence Boissiere and Harlem Strik­ers Gre­go­ry Mc Sween made it clear they are not tak­ing the ac­tion light­ly.

The two, along with oth­er clubs ex­ec­u­tives, said they have let­ters of com­mit­ment from the Su­per League that they will be in­clud­ed in the 2019 edi­tion of the tour­na­ment af­ter they missed the 2018 sea­son due to reg­is­tra­tion mix-ups.

"As mem­bers of the T&TFA, we were not giv­en let­ters of our sus­pen­sion and for what rea­son, which is a manda­to­ry process. I was in­formed of my club's sus­pen­sion while hav­ing a drink at a bar," Mc Sween told the T&T Guardian.

Boissiere and Mc Sween be­lieve the de­ci­sion to sus­pend them con­sti­tut­ed a ma­jor breach of the con­sti­tu­tion and was un­fair­ly done by TTSL pres­i­dent Kei­th Look Loy to get del­e­gates to vote for his Unit­ed TTFA slate at the com­ing TTFA elec­tions.

Cunu­pia FC coach Michael De Four, who was al­lowed to vote on Sun­day, told Guardian Me­dia that Look Loy and the Su­per League ex­ec­u­tive had months to de­cide on a date to vote for del­e­gates, but wait­ed un­til a month be­fore the TTFA elec­tion to hasti­ly send out in­for­ma­tion, which some mem­bers may not have got­ten. He said he be­lieved this was done de­lib­er­ate­ly to keep cer­tain mem­bers away.

Ha­gley echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments when con­tact­ed. Guaya Unit­ed was one of eight TTSL del­e­gates be­fore Sun­day but they have now been re­placed. Guaya Unit­ed, Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed, Po­lice FC and Cunu­pia FC were re­placed among the del­e­gate list­ing by RSSR, Prison Ser­vice, QPCC and UTT. The new eight del­e­gates are now FC San­ta Rosa, Pris­ons, Queen's Park, RSSR, UTT, Club San­do, Bethel Unit­ed and San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants.

Con­tact­ed on Tues­day, Look Loy said, "The Su­per League is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion, de­ci­sions were tak­en and the en­tire League stands by those de­ci­sions and what any­one else has to say is im­ma­te­r­i­al, I have no re­sponse to that.

"I am not go­ing to en­gage in any bac­cha­nal with peo­ple who have been sub­ject­ed to the rule of law by the ma­jor­i­ty of the League."

Mean­while, the TTSL con­firmed that Bethel Unit­ed FC, Club San­do, FC San­ta Rosa, Pris­ons FC, Queen's Park Crick­et Club, RSSR FC, San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants FC and UTT FC had been elect­ed to rep­re­sent TTSL at the 2019 TTFA AGM. In a re­lease, it said 12 of the TTSL's 14 clubs par­tic­i­pat­ed in Sat­ur­day's AGM at the Queen's Park Oval and the meet­ing al­so unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved the 2018 Ac­tiv­i­ty Re­port and Au­dit­ed Fi­nan­cial State­ment. It added that An­der­son Veronique was al­so elect­ed to the TTSL board at the meet­ing.

As far as the TTFA elec­tion is con­cerned, Guaya Unit­ed's Ha­gley has open­ly said he will sup­port in­cum­bent TTFA pres­i­dent David John-Williams in the elec­tion race, but De Four yes­ter­day called on mem­bers to throw their sup­port be­hind Fer­gu­son, say­ing he has shown what should be done by clubs to gen­er­ate mon­ey and be­come self-sus­tain­able, as well as how foot­ball should be man­aged, in the short time he has been in­volved in lo­cal foot­ball.

"This is a man who has shown the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to gen­er­ate funds by the way he runs his club alone. He has al­so shown the abil­i­ty to man­age the sport the way the coun­try needs it. Un­like the oth­er can­di­dates who are promis­ing to se­cure funds, this man will be pro­vid­ing his fund­ing and I am sure he will turn the for­tunes of T&T foot­ball around if giv­en a chance," De Four said.

He added, "I can­not imag­ine the elec­torate vot­ing for any­one else but Fer­gu­son, know­ing what he has to of­fer. It will be sad if that hap­pens."