TTFA News Thread.

[soccerman]

Even Bruce had enough with this bunch.

[Flex]

Look Loy takes TTFA to High Court.
By Andrew Gioannetti (Newsday).

TT SUPER League president Keith Look Loy has sought the help of the High Court to compel TT Football Association (TTFA) president David John-Williams to provide documents on the controversial "home for football" project.

Following a pre-action protocol letter issued to John-Williams's lawyers last month, Look Loy made good on his promise to involve the court as he filed a claim for judicial review on Monday in a final attempt to get the TTFA chief to provide the details.

Last month, Look Loy's lawyers sent John-Williams a pre-action protocol letter, which gave the TTFA chief a July 24 deadline to act on the request.

"We're no longer playing their game with them because what they intend to do is to clearly is to deferring and bluffing and, therefore, we've taken this course," Look Loy said in an interview with Newsday today.

[Flex]

TTFA meets with US Embassy Consular Chief, Panama Ambassador.
TTFA Media.

The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association wishes to advise all stakeholders that two recent meetings were held with the Ambassador of Panama, His Excellency Luis Cigarruista Vargas, on his invitation at the Embassy of the Republic of Panama, St Clair, Port of Spain on August 14th, 2018. TTFA officials also met with Consular Chief Tim Swanson of the US Embassy at its Port of Spain offices late last month.

Attending the meeting with the Ambassador of Panama on the FA’s behalf was General Secretary Justin Latapy-George.

According to Latapy-George, “His Excellency was particularly interested in Exchange Programmes, All Star Games and Training and Development that included Language as an element. His Excellency was very open about his expectations and will now engage persons within his networks so we can forge forward with planning and agreeing on a defined partnership.”

Also meeting with the Panamanian Ambassador was Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) General Secretary Azaad Mohammed-Khan upon invitation, as discussions were also held  around support and collaborations with the SSFL.

The FA also wishes to advise that Consular Chief Tim Swanson met with Latapy-George and Manager of the Trinidad and Tobago Men’s Under 20 Team Alexandrine Elliot-Procupe on August 29th at the US Embassy, Port of Spain to discuss the visa process and requirements for the team members traveling to the United States for future tournaments. The next set of T&T national team slated to travel are the Women’s Senior Team for the CONCACAF Final round of Women’s Qualifying in October and the Men’s Under 20 team for the CONCACAF qualifiers in Florida in November.

Latapy-George wishes to thank the Embassy for facilitating the meeting and providing guidance.

[Flex]

Look Loy proposes motion to dismiss TTFA boss.
By Andrew Gioannetti (Newsday).

TT Super League and FC Santa Rosa president Keith Look Loy has submitted a proposal to TT Football Association (TTFA) general secretary Justin Latapy-George to include a motion for the dismissal of TTFA president David John-Williams in the agenda for the upcoming TTFA annual general meeting (AGM).

Look Loy, in his capacity as FC Santa Rosa president, submitted the proposal to Latapy-George via email on Friday ahead of the AGM, which according to the TTFA constitution, will have to be scheduled for November or before.

Look Loy highlighted Article 28 in the new TTFA Constitution which notes: “The general secretary shall draw up the agenda based on proposals from the board of directors and the members. Any proposal that a member wishes to submit to the general meeting shall be sent to the general secretariat in writing, with a brief explanation, at least 40 days before the date of the AGM.”

The proposal, therefore, is expected to be tabled at the 2018 AGM unless it is called prior to October 17.

He provided examples of ways in which he believes “David John-Williams, has presided over...the calamitous deterioration of our football.” A summary of the examples he provided are as follows:

“Unilateral decision making by the President”; “steady deterioration of TTFA’s national teams’ programme”; “cronyism”; “mismanagement of TTFA’s finances”; “frivolous accumulation of law suits”; “lack of transparency in administrative and financial matters”; “deterioration of league football”; and “international shame brought about our country by the attempt to blame the US embassy for the debacle of our women’s U-15 team being withdrawn from the CONCACAF tournament.”

Look Loy also quoted Article 38 of the constitution which addresses the dismissal of a person or body.

The article states: “The general meeting may dismiss a person or a member of a body. The board of directors may place the dismissal of a person or a member of a body on the agenda for the general meeting. The board of directors may also dismiss a person or a member of a body provisionally. Any board of directors member may submit a proposal to place such a motion for dismissal on the agenda of the board of directors or general meeting.”

The article also notes that the motion must be justified; the person or body in question has the right to defend himself or herself; the motion for dismissal shall be decided by means of secret ballot.

A three-quarter majority of the valid votes is requires for the motion to be passed and if successful, according to the constitution, “the person or body dismissed (provisionally) is relieved of his or its functions with immediate effect.”

Look Loy, in an interview with Newsday yesterday said he is unsure what to expect when the motion is raised.

“I do this knowing that it can succeed or it could fail but that’s not my point. I do this for two reasons. One, is that they have to be challenged because we cannot afford another year of this nonsense. And secondly, I want everybody to see who is who in TTFA. Let us see who are the forces aligned to oppose this rut in the TTFA and those who are aligned to support it.”

Drawing reference to the successful no-confidence vote against then Eastern Football Association (EFA) president Linus Sanchez on Thursday, Look Loy said, “They (the clubs) had enough. They haven’t kicked a ball for the season.”

“He has people who have voted in the important issues in the TTFA like board members who are supporting this...These people are encouraging, shielding John-Williams in his behaviour. I am exposing it and I want to expose it now.”

Less than two weeks ago, Look Loy filed a application for judicial review in the high court to compel John-Williams to provide documentation on the TTFA’s “home of football” project.

[Flex]

TTFA drops the ball again.
By Keith Clement (Guardian).

Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs (MYSA) Sham­fa Cud­joe along with se­nior of­fi­cials of the Min­istry met yes­ter­day with gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), Justin Lat­apy-George and Jinelle James, man­ag­er of the se­nior women’s na­tion­al foot­ball team, in light of the re­cent claims cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia in re­la­tion to the lack of sup­port shown to the T&T se­nior women’s team.

The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs ad­vised that no for­mal re­quest was made to the min­istry by TTFA for as­sis­tance for the CON­CA­CAF qual­i­fiers for the FI­FA women’s World Cup, or any oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties this year.

Last week, a re­quest was made for as­sis­tance with trans­porta­tion for the lo­cal­ly-based play­ers to be trans­port­ed to and from train­ing at the Ato Boldon and Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Cou­va and Mara­bel­la, re­spec­tive­ly. Then, the Min­istry pro­vid­ed its bus­es to be used by the team.

On Mon­day, James con­tact­ed Patrice Charles, di­rec­tor of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport, MSYA to in­quire about as­sis­tance for the team, in its ef­forts to have the for­eign-based play­ers trav­el to Trinidad to join the lo­cal­ly based play­ers for train­ing.

Charles pro­vid­ed the nec­es­sary guid­ance to James and in­formed her that a for­mal de­tailed re­quest must be sub­mit­ted by the TTFA, on its let­ter­head, to the Min­istry, since the TTFA is the na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body that has re­mit over the na­tion­al team.

How­ev­er, on Tues­day, the MSYA through Charles re­ceived an in­for­mal email from the man­ag­er re­quest­ing a to­tal of $159,360, to cov­er the cost of air­fare for 28 per­sons, in the ef­fort to have all for­eign-based play­ers trav­el to Trinidad for train­ing and prepa­ra­tion.

Fol­low­ing the de­vel­op­ments in the me­dia re­lat­ing to the is­sue, Min­is­ter Cud­joe called the man­age­ment of TTFA to a meet­ing to dis­cuss and at­tempt to re­solve the mat­ter.

At yes­ter­day’s meet­ing, Lat­apy-George claimed that nei­ther he nor the ex­ec­u­tive of TTFA was aware of the pro­pos­al be­ing made by James and he re­quest­ed that James’ pro­pos­al, be with­drawn with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

Lat­apy-George fur­ther stat­ed that the ex­ec­u­tive of TTFA is in the process of con­sid­er­ing oth­er op­tions, con­trary to what James pro­posed, to fa­cil­i­tate the prepa­ra­tion of the play­ers, that may con­sist of hav­ing the lo­cal­ly-based play­ers trav­el to the USA to train with the for­eign-based play­ers, rather than have the USA-based play­ers fly to Trinidad. He al­so stat­ed that the TTFA ex­ec­u­tive is al­so in the process of fi­nal­is­ing arrange­ments for a coach and oth­er tech­ni­cal sup­port for the team.

Lat­apy-George stat­ed that the ex­ec­u­tive would like the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet and rea­son with the team’s man­age­ment in or­der to prop­er­ly dis­cuss the mat­ter at hand, and sub­se­quent­ly pro­duce a de­tailed pro­pos­al along with a for­mal re­quest for fund­ing to the Min­istry.

Min­is­ter Cud­joe re­mind­ed the TTFA of­fi­cials that time is of the essence and that the team is de­pend­ing on the TTFA man­age­ment to work dili­gent­ly and har­mo­nious­ly in the best in­ter­est of ded­i­cat­ed play­ers, and foot­ball by ex­ten­sion.

Min­is­ter Cud­joe gave the of­fi­cials a dead­line of Mon­day (Sep­tem­ber 17), no lat­er than noon, to sub­mit the rel­e­vant pro­pos­al for con­sid­er­a­tion by the min­istry.

In a re­lease, the min­istry said: "Giv­en the fact that the end of fis­cal year 2017/2018 is up­on us, the Min­istry will ex­plore all pos­si­ble means in or­der to pro­vide the nec­es­sary as­sis­tance to the team, once the re­quired doc­u­ments are sub­mit­ted.

"The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs re­mains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the rel­e­vant sup­port in en­sur­ing that T&T at­tains the high­est stan­dard of ath­letes at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. Fur­ther, the fu­ture of the sport in T&T is in good hands un­der the lead­er­ship and guid­ance of the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs."

On Au­gust 10, Charge d Af­fairs John McIn­tyre of the Unit­ed States Em­bassy ac­cused the TTFA of drop­ping the ball by not mak­ing a time­ly re­quest for visas for the girls Un­der-15 team to par­tic­i­pate in a CON­CA­CAF tour­na­ment in the USA. The team did not trav­el.

[Tallman]

Axe Latapy-George…Look Loy says explanation not good enough
By Ian Prescott (T&T Express)

THE continued tenure of Justin Latapy-George as General-Secretary of the Trinidad and Toba-o Football Association (TTFA) is being questioned and is tabled for discussion on Wednesday when a group of dissident TTFA Board members hold an ad-hoc board meeting from 5:30 pm at Couva.

TTFA board member Keith Look Loy has repeated calls for the resignations of president John-Williams and vice-president Ewing Davis, and now also thinks General Secretary Latapy-George should go as well - for his failure to immediately inform Board members of the September 11 resignation of TTFA second vice-president Joanne Salazar.

Latapy-George has offered an explanation by stating he was under orders of the TTFA president to withhold the information until further advised "All of them are complicit and, for that matter, Latapy as well because although he was claiming he was under orders not to reveal it, you also have your professional requirements and your constitutional requirements," Look Loy said.

"In my view and in other people's view, it isn't enough for him to simply say he was under orders. That is not good enough," Look Loy declared" (When) you are in charge of the administration of TTFA and if something like that comes up and happens, it is your duty and responsibility to communicate it to members."

Super League president Look Loy along with Karanjabari Williams (Northern FA), Joseph Taylor (TTFRA), Sharon Warrick (Women's League Football), Julia Baptiste (T&T Pro League) and Collin Partap (Central Football Association) have called a board meeting, despite the president John-Williams not initiating the discussion. "We are going to invite John-Williams, we going to invite Davis, we going to invite Latapy.....the whole executive will be invited. But if they don't come, the six members who called it have the right to proceed and we intend to do that."

The rebel Board Members have wowed to push on with deliberations but it is debatable whether decisions emerging from their Board meeting have any legal footing on its own, without being ratified at an AGM.

That is a big issue. Who knows if that is going to be another issue? But we fully intend to go ahead. I'm sure they are going to make that an issue," group spokesman Look Loy stated. "We believe that we have the authority."

The agenda also includes the discussion of issues surrounding the national women's football team; the dormant Under-17 and Under-20 men teams; issues surrounding the recent resignation of vice-president Joanne Salazar; and Look Loy's calls for John-Williams' resignation.

'We are allowed to do that under Article 35," Look Loy said. 'The article says that fifty per cent of the Members can call a meeting and the meeting has to be called within 10 days of the date in which they submitted their request"

He continued: 'The constitution states that if the president does not call it, then the members have the right to proceed without them."

Look Loy's meeting may face a hitch, however, with the TTFA president only recognising Warrick, Baptiste and Partap as provisional members, they having replaced other representatives after the Board was initially selected. Any decisions taken might not be considered legal.

"That is a debate. John-Williams and others have been saying that," Look Loy countered. "He (John-Williams) declaring people to be provision or part-representative. We challenge that. He doesn't have that right under the constitution."

He continued: "We have an annual general meeting on the 24th of November and we definitely will be addressing that (issue) in that meeting."

[royal]

so Latapy-George is a grown man and he dunno right from wrong? He blaming others for doing wrong? A man holding such position and behaving like he in kindergarten?   

[Mad Scorpion a/k/a Big Bo$$]

so Latapy-George is a grown man and he dunno right from wrong? He blaming others for doing wrong? A man holding such position and behaving like he in kindergarten?   

He full ah shit just like de next imps running things

[Flex]

Look Loy: John-Williams’ agenda a delay tactic.
By Andrew Gioannetti (Newsday).

PRESIDENT of the TT Football Association (TTFA) David John-Williams, on Monday, issued an extensive 15-item agenda to be tabled at tomorrow’s highly anticipated board meeting, leaving all four items submitted by member of the TTFA board of directors Keith Look Loy and agreed to by six other members who called the meeting, for last.

On September 15, Look Loy, with sufficient support from members of the TTFA’s board of directors compelled John-Williams to call a meeting within ten days as stipulated in the association’s constitution.

On Sunday, however, TTFA general secretary Justin Latapy-George emailed the board of directors notifying them in following advice from John-Williams, the meeting will take place tomorrow — two days past the deadline— at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva, where the TTFA’s head office is located.

Look Loy replied to the email Sunday evening stating, “Please note that six (6) board members have legally requested a meeting (on 15 September) under Article 35, and have declared an agenda.

The President is constrained by the Constitution to call this meeting within ten days ( by 25 September). As usual, the President chooses to ignore the Constitution and pretends to be calling a Board meeting on his own volition.

“In the interest of calm within TTFA we are prepared to meet on 27 September but, 1) the start time should be 5.30pm to ensure full attendance, and 2) the agenda declared by the six members in their petition must be respected and adhered to: Women’s team, including appointment of coach; Men’s U17 and U20 teams; TTFRA referee issues; Other business.”

However, on Monday, Latapy-George notified the board via email with a 15-item agenda presented to him by John-Williams. The agenda, in order, comprised, “Prayer; Conf. of the Agenda; Conf. of Minutes; Confirmation of resignation of V P Salazar; Status of board member Wayne Cunningham; Correspondence from board members; code of ethics; 2017 Statement of Accounts; 2018 Management Accounts; Membership Subscriptions; Public Statements by Members of the Board of Directors; Refereeing issues previously tabled by TTFRA; Status of Men’s Under 17 and Under 20 team; Appointment of a technical staff to the Women’s National Team; Any other business.”

Look Loy once again addressed Latapy-George in an email response stating, “As usual, the President is ignoring the Constitution and the wishes of members.

We have legally requested a meeting under Article 35, with a defined agenda (sic)...The President must respect the requirements of Article 35 or the membership is free to meet without him.” Look Loy took issue with the placement of the four items from his proposed agenda on John-Williams’ 15-item list.

“It is (a delay tactic). We are insisting on our agenda under 35 (of the constitution). The constitution demands he observe it. But, of course, he cares nothing for the constitution,” he said in an interview yesterday.

Look Loy also took issue with John-Williams’ call for the meeting to start at 3 pm, on a working day, as opposed to his proposed 5.30 pm start.

“A leader who wants full participation would facilitate it, not hinder it and make attending a sacrifice. Also, in his style, he will drop the time late tomorrow (today) so people get minimum notice.

In reference the 15-item agenda, Look Loy said, “He (John-Williams) puts it at the end of an agenda that we won’t finish in four meetings.

His priorities are code of ethics and statements by board members when the women play in seven days and the Under-17s haven’t trained since May 28th.”

According to the constitution, the president is responsible with compiling the agenda for the board meeting before a vote is taken at the meeting for confirmation of the agenda.

Look Loy sought to address those who have suggested publicly that his intent is to take TT football into further disrepute.

“I wish to underline the fact that I, and we, are standing for the constitution of TTFA, and for transparency and accountability.

John-Williams and cohorts are the ones who are causing the instability in the association. (There are some) who refer to myself and the people who fighting this matter of the meeting on Thursday as rebels and dissidents and we strenuously object to that. It is a total misrepresentation of our stance,” he said.

[Tiresais]

so Latapy-George is a grown man and he dunno right from wrong? He blaming others for doing wrong? A man holding such position and behaving like he in kindergarten?

This is the time-honoured strategy of "having a cake and eating it"

[Flex]

TTFA board meeting bears little fruit.
By Andrew Gioannetti (Newsday).

THE TT Football Association (TTFA) held its first board meeting since June, on Thursday, during which Shawn Cooper was confirmed as head coach of the senior national women's team, something that, according to the TTFA constitution, should have taken place following the resignation of former coach, Jamaal Shabazz.

Despite the constitution making it clear that the TTFA president is to call a board meeting at least once every two months, it took six board members to come together to compel president David John-Williams to call a meeting to address a series of mounting issues affecting the administration and by extension, the problems surrounding domestic and national team football, one of which was the unconstitutional appointment of Cooper as head coach without a legitimate technical committee or vote.

All members of the TTFA board of directors were present at the board meeting. Three, however, were barred from voting by John-Williams, apparently because of their standing as provisional members, although nothing in the 2015 TTFA constitution alludes to this.

The board members include: president John-Williams, Ewing Davis (vice-president), Sharon Warrick (Women’s League Football - WOLF), Keith Look Loy (TT Super League), Julia Baptiste (TT Pro League), Joseph Taylor (TT Football Referees Association), and from the zones: Karanjabari Williams (Northern FA), Richard Quan Chan (Southern FA), Wayne Cunningham (Eastern FA), Anthony Moore (Tobago FA).

Eastern Counties FA is currently suspended for its failure to meet compliance requirements.

Discussions at the meeting focused on: Wayne Cunningham and his dual role as a representative of the EFA and as a media officer for the TTFA; VP Joanne Salazar’s resignation; matters pertaining to the TT Football Referees Association; matters pertaining to the senior national women’s team; and matters pertaining to the inoperative national men’s U-17 and U-20 teams.

On the issue of Salazar’s resignation, John-Williams claims he spoke to the former vice president, a claim supported by Moore.

“I held to the view that he denied info to the board and lacked transparency,” Look Loy said.

A thread of emails obtained by Newsday recently showed correspondence between John-Williams and TTFA general secretary Justin Latapy-George, in which the president clearly gave instructions to the latter to hide the resignation of Salazar from the board.

Salazar effectively resigned on September 11, ten days before the board was informed.

“(At the board meeting) Partap made the point she (Salazar) resigned with immediate effect and advised the board ten days later with immediate effect. There was nothing to discuss. I asked if he didn’t accept her resignation… if she remained a VP. In the end, as chair, he closed the discussion with consensus acceptance of the resignation,” Look Loy said.

In between that ten-day period with the TTFA in the dark over Salazar’s resignation, another unconstitutional farce took place in which a vote led by Richard Quan Chan as chairman of the technical committee, was taken via email to appoint Cooper as head coach of the senior women’s national team.

However, as confirmed in the board meeting, there is in fact no such working committee at present.

In addition to there being no technical committee, John-Williams advised the board that Cooper has been appointed by means of a majority vote.

He counted nine votes, although by his own estimation, only eight members were eligible to vote. In a media release, constructed by John-Williams, he indicated that five board members voted in favour of appointing Cooper as coach, while three voted against and there was one abstention.

There was also the matter of the vote being taken by email, which is expressly forbidden in the constitution.

As the women’s team is due to compete at the Concacaf Women’s Championship, starting next Thursday, each member of the board voted to appoint Cooper as coach. “We agreed to begin an immediate search for a coach to lead the women’s team in the next cycle,” he said.

“All of this,” Look Loy said, “should have been dealt with immediately after Shabazz resigned.

“As I have been saying all along, last night, John-Williams’ deceit and delays in coming to the board, forced the board to go with the staff we already have in place. With the first match only six days off, we not chance. In any event, TTFA has no money to bring in anyone new, including Waldrum.”

According to Look Loy, the two women in the board, Warrick and Baptiste, both expressed “great dissatisfaction” with TTFA’s handling of the women's team and women's football in general. “I endorse that,” he said.

In regard to the discussions surrounding the inactive U-17 and U-20 teams, Look Loy said a plan and budget was mandated to cover a period of six months and two months, respectively, for the two programmes.

Look Loy was asked by Newsday if he considered including discussions for the controversial “home of football” project for the agenda, to which he responded: “No, I will rely on the high court to force John-Williams to provide access to all the financial records of the TTFA and the home of football project.”

He said a court date of October 26 has been confirmed.

However, he added that, “his lawyer has repeatedly offered a date when I could come and then backed out.”

“Last thing they offered was October 4. I said okay for 10 am. I wanted guarantee I would have access to all documents I requested. They have not responded. They are playing a game, so I will rely on the judge.”

“But the issue is, why should a board member have to resort to the judicial system to access documents that belong to the TTFA?"

Look Loy said there were several albeit small positives to take from Thursday’s meeting.

“We see the decision taken regarding the three national teams and the decision to form a technical committee as a victory for the constitutional authority of the board over those who would undermine it.”

[Flex]

TTFA, the next Petrotrin.
By Keith Clement  (Guardian).

Since tak­ing of­fice on No­vem­ber 29, 2015, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) led by David John-Williams has been the sub­ject of nu­mer­ous me­dia at­tacks from both the tra­di­tion­al and so­cial me­dia sur­round­ing its op­er­a­tions and the lead­er­ship style of its pres­i­dent.

Over the past few months, Guardian Me­dia Sports has reached out to sev­er­al mem­bers of the board in an ef­fort to as­cer­tain if the claims from the board’s most vo­cal mem­ber - Su­per League pres­i­dent Kei­th Look Loy - are jus­ti­fied.

A source close to the TTFA’s op­er­a­tions said for any­one to give the im­pres­sion the board is a one-man show would be dis­hon­est and out­right mak­ing mis­chief to desta­bilise the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the sport.

"We are not per­fect but our records and board min­utes will show that Joanne Salazar was the chair­per­son of the Fi­nance Com­mit­tee be­fore she re­signed last month while vice pres­i­dent Mr Davis (Ew­ing) is the chair­man of the Ten­ders Com­mit­tee, which in­cludes Wayne Cun­ning­ham and Joseph Tay­lor is chair of the Ref­er­ees Com­mit­tee and Richard Quan Chan is chair­man of the Tech­ni­cal Com­mit­tee.

"I will agree that the board should push for a wider cross-sec­tion of per­sons to be co-opt­ed in­to the com­mit­tees so that we can de­liv­er more and be­come more ef­fi­cient," the source said.

Af­ter Guardian Me­dia Sports was turned down sev­er­al times by var­i­ous board mem­bers for in­ter­views, a di­rec­tor agreed to speak to us about the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the sport strict­ly on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

The source re­vealed that there are one or two board mem­bers who want to lead but refuse to abide by the rule of col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when they don't get their way and that can­not be good for the sport.

"It's ei­ther you are a board mem­ber or you are not. Not every­one will agree with you and your opin­ion," said the source, who point­ed out that there has been a lot of noise in the me­dia about the TTFA’s ac­counts and fi­nan­cial af­fairs but the fact is that every­one on the board has all the ac­counts and every­one knows the true fi­nan­cial sta­tus of the body.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was shown au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial ac­counts for 2014 through 2017 done by Madame Ram­nar­ine & Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

The source said, "When we came in­to of­fice in 2015 there were no au­dit­ed ac­counts for 2008 to 2015 and we fixed that.”

In fact, the source added, "The AGM of 2015 was con­duct­ed with­out fi­nan­cial state­ments and FI­FA fund­ing was sus­pend­ed for a long time as a re­sult of no fi­nan­cial ac­counts. It is this ad­min­is­tra­tion that re­stored FI­FA fund­ing. The FA (foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion) al­so has an up to date fi­nan­cial man­age­ment state­ment of ac­counts up to Au­gust 31, 2018."

Armed with a brief­case, the source said, "Every mem­ber of the board knows that when we were elect­ed we in­her­it­ed a debt of well over $23 mil­lion dol­lars ($23,507,263.10 to be ex­act) and we dis­cussed it at every meet­ing when we meet and much of the in­come the FA has raised to date has been used to ser­vice that debt."

The source ex­plained that back in June, for­mer pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee, in an ar­ti­cle in the T&T Guardian, called for an­swers on why the TTFA was still in the "red" when it re­ceived twice as many monies from FI­FA than when he was in pow­er. The source point­ed out that Tim Kee had said in the ar­ti­cle, "The TTFA used to re­ceive US$58,000 every quar­ter for de­vel­op­ment and I have heard that the new pres­i­dent now re­ceives much more than that, so where is the mon­ey go­ing?"

The source said, "Mr Tim Kee knows that when FI­FA gives mon­ey it's for spe­cif­ic pur­pos­es and it can­not be used for any debt serv­ing. The cur­rent debt ser­vic­ing comes from oth­er rev­enues raised and sourced by the FA."

Ac­cord­ing to a doc­u­ment ti­tled “Mem­ber­ship Pre­sen­ta­tion 2018,” which was pre­sent­ed to mem­bers in April, a sum of $7,673,680.54 was paid to sev­er­al debtors which in­clude coach­es, a for­mer ref­er­ee, play­ers World Cup match fees and ser­vice providers.

The source said the debt to for­mer women's coach Even Pellerud of $1.3 mil­lion or (US$210,146,00) was the most cru­cial for T&T be­cause the FI­FA's Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee had giv­en T&T 120 days from March 2015 to pay Pellerud or face sanc­tions which in­clud­ed be­ing dis­qual­i­fied from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the World Cup qual­i­fiers.

To date, the FA has al­so cleared part of the $3.6 mil­lion owed to cur­rent tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor An­ton Corneal and part of the $7 mil­lion owed to coach Rus­sell Lat­apy, while for­mer World Cup ref­er­ee Ramesh Ramd­han was paid $572.280.00 in full, while the Ban­quet and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Graph­ics Ad­ver­tis­ing and two out of six ho­tels were al­so paid.

The doc­u­ments ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed show that the TTFA still owes $15,121,815.34, which in­cludes over a mil­lion dol­lars to PTSC, the staff of the se­nior and ju­nior teams and play­ers.

The source said, "The FA owed al­most all the ho­tel and trav­el agency busi­ness­es in T&T and they all sued us for their monies. Some we've paid in part, some we have paid in full and oth­ers we have asked for time and there are still mat­ters be­fore the courts. This is one of the main rea­sons why foot­ball is in this state to­day.

“As mon­ey comes in most of it goes out to pay the debts that we in­her­it­ed and a cou­ple of the debts were in­curred by keep­ing our na­tion­al team op­er­a­tions ac­tive. We know that as a board we must ho­n­our all the debts as the FA.”

The source added, “This is not about John-Williams and Kei­th Look Loy, this is about T&T foot­ball. A large sum of the monies the FA has got­ten from Con­ca­caf has gone to pay loans, which means our na­tion­al teams and de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes have tak­en a hit."

From the doc­u­ments re­viewed, the $15 mil­lion debt does not in­clude a claim by for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary Shel­don Phillips, who in April filed a trade dis­pute in the In­dus­tri­al Court for wrong­ful dis­missal and is seek­ing dam­ages of US$1.4 mil­lion or TT$10 mil­lion.

The source said, "I don't want to say much about this mat­ter. How­ev­er, Mr Phillips was hired by the for­mer FA un­der pres­i­dent Tim Kee on May 9, 2013, to a four-year con­tract which was ter­mi­nat­ed in Oc­to­ber 2015. I want to in­vite all of T&T to be present in court for this mat­ter be­cause we want every­one to know what the FA is be­ing sued for here. I hope the me­dia will be present al­so to re­port on this mat­ter.”

The FA al­so set­tled all fines from FI­FA to­talling 12,500 Swiss francs or TT$90,000.

The source said the fig­ures pro­vid­ed to the T&T Guardian did not in­clude a le­gal claim by a for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tor of the FA for $15 mil­lion and an­oth­er $2.4 mil­lion by nine in­di­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies, which in­cludes a for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary and a com­pa­ny owned by the son of a for­mer pres­i­dent.

In Feb­ru­ary, John-Williams, the TTFA pres­i­dent wrote FI­FA seek­ing as­sis­tance in an ef­fort to avoid the or­gan­i­sa­tion from shut­ting down in his let­ter to Veron Mosen­go-Om­ba he wrote: "The pay­ments made above to­tal TT $8,632,129.82 or (USD 1,290,000.00) and rep­re­sents funds which the FA has earned and should have been utilised in our foot­ball pro­grammes. At the mo­ment all our pro­grammes are grind­ing to a halt as a re­sult. We fore­see with­in one month the need to sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce staff in or­der to just sur­vive.

"Our FI­FA for­ward mon­ey for spe­cial projects for 2016-2018 (USD2, 250,000.00) has been com­mit­ted to our Home of Foot­ball Project which we hope to com­plete by Sep­tem­ber 2018. We en­vis­age this project as a ma­jor in­come gen­er­a­tor for the as­so­ci­a­tion there­after. Our 2018 FI­FA For­ward op­er­a­tions mon­ey is ful­ly bud­get­ed for - the ma­jor cost be­ing wages and salaries.

"In the cir­cum­stances, in or­der to sur­vive in the im­me­di­ate, we are seek­ing some fund­ing or ad­vances from FI­FA to as­sist our cash flow needs. I am avail­able at any time to dis­cuss this ur­gent mat­ter at hand."

[Deeks]

Steiuuups!!!!!!

[FF]

What is this? A propaganda piece??

[presspass]

Look Loy refuses to sign non-disclosure agreement
...To proceed with High Court action against TTFA president


THERE are two ways in which TT Super League president Keith Look Loy or other Football Association (TTFA) board members may access information to the controversial TTFA “home of football” project in Couva, which is currently under construction.

Look Loy will either have to sign a non-disclosure agreement put out by TTFA president David John-Williams’ attorney – something he refuses to do – or he will have no choice but to take legal action to force John-Williams to release details to the board.

Look Loy said since he has no intention of signing the document, he is left with little choice but to pursue the matter through the courts, although it will inevitably add to the mounting debt the association faces through various lawsuits and arrears.

According to information obtained by Newsday, John-Williams’ attorney Annand Misir recently sent Look Loy and his attorney a non-disclosure agreement, which, if he signed, would effectively prevent them from disclosing the financial and contractual details on the FIFA-funded project to the board or make it public.

Last Wednesday, Look Loy wrote to the TTFA board by e-mail advising them of his continued inability to access information on the project, as well as John-Williams’ attempts to keep the matter private by means of the non-disclosure agreement, which he scanned and copied to the e-mail.

In the e-mail, Look Loy sought to remind the board members of the numerous attempts made, since December 26, 2017
, to acquire information on the project from both John-Williams and TTFA general secretary Justin Latapy-George.

Look Loy said after several unsuccessful attempts, he hired attorney Matthew Gayle, who wrote to John-Williams in July, telling him of a final request for information before the commencement of legal proceedings.

“This failed to convince the TTFA president that said documents should be made available,” Look Loy told the board.

On August 27, Gayle, on behalf of Look Loy, filed an application for leave to claim for judicial review in the High Court, which Look Loy said was done in the “interest of transparency and accountability within the association, and to ensure the right of TTFA board members – the governors of the association ­– to information, is respected.

“Following on this, and in the effort to ensure TTFA does not have yet another legal matter on which to spend legal fees, as well as to reduce conflict within the association, I made, through Mr Gayle, more than one unsuccessful attempt to secure access to the requested information without final intervention of the High Court.

“Finally, the legal representative of TTFA, Annand Misir, wrote to my legal representative offering to make documents available today (October 3) at 10 am.”

Look Loy said that on Tuesday, the day before, Misir wrote to Gayle in an attempt to impose a non-disclosure agreement “that seeks to limit and qualify my right – as a TTFA board member – to access and to report on said documentation to my constituency (TTSL membership) and to the TTFA general membership.”

Look Loy continued: “The TTFA board has never discussed and/or approved any contract for project works by any company and/or service provider in Couva. Indeed, in TT Super League all commercial agreements are discussed and agreed by the entire membership – not just the board – in the effort to ensure transparency and to eliminate the possibility of corruption, e.g. the League’s recent signing of a broadcast contract with TTEN TV.”

He added that the TTFA board never discussed or agreed any legal course of action in response to his High Court application. “The TTFA president and/or Mr Misir does not have sole authority to decide on same and should be required to table this matter before the board membership.”

The president’s refusal to present the requested documents.

Look Loy said, “contradicts his assurance to the 2017 TTFA Annual General Meeting that said documents are available in the TTFA office.”

The TTFA board, he said, “has never discussed and/or agreed the imposition of a non-disclosure agreement on board members regarding access to any TTFA documents. The president, and/or Mr Misir, does not have authority to impose same, which in any event would be unconstitutional and an illegal limitation of member representative rights and responsibility to report to their membership. I stand by my commitment to transparency and accountability in TTFA.

I refuse to sign any non-disclosure agreement,” Look Loy wrote.

He concluded by signalling his intention to go ahead with legal action in the High Court, “unless the TTFA board ensures the TTFA president makes all the requested documents available to me – and by definition, to all TTFA board members.”

[Mad Scorpion a/k/a Big Bo$$]

Either DJW hiding something or he's a pigheaded moron

[Flex]

Help! TTFA hiding & Windies drifting!
By Colin Murray (Guardian).

I, like many of you, re­main ut­ter­ly frus­trat­ed with the ex­ec­u­tive of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA). It makes ab­solute­ly no sense writ­ing any­thing more about them. They just don't seem to care about our foot­ball, much less our foot­ballers in T&T. They sent our So­ca Princess­es to be em­bar­rassed in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed 2018 CON­CA­CAF Women's Cham­pi­onship, the tour­na­ment which serves as the qual­i­fiers to the 2019 FI­FA Women's World Cup in France.

The team end­ed with ze­ro points and con­ced­ed 14 goals from three match­es. But the one thing the TTFA ex­ec­u­tive ap­pears good at is keep­ing all the con­tracts and fi­nan­cials for their beloved 'home of foot­ball' top se­cret. They are so tal­ent­ed; the way they shift in­for­ma­tion, the ex­ec­u­tive should run for of­fice in the Chess As­so­ci­a­tion. Imag­ine, a TTA Board mem­ber has to take them to court to gain ac­cess to the As­so­ci­a­tion's fi­nan­cial records and con­tracts re­lat­ing to the con­tro­ver­sial project in Cou­va. Am I miss­ing some­thing here? Of course not. This is their modus operan­di.

The once mighty Windies (25 years ago) were crushed by In­dia in the 2 test match­es both in­side 3 days but I hope no one was sur­prised, as I had in­di­cat­ed we would have need­ed a ma­jor mir­a­cle to get any­thing from the se­ries. So nat­u­ral­ly, to rub salt in­to an ex­treme­ly bad wound and en­sure it hurts, even more, the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) de­duct­ed 1 rat­ing point to leave us still lan­guish­ing in 9th spot with 76 points ahead of Bangladesh on 67 points. What's in­ter­est­ing is the Windies tour the “Tigers” next month for a cru­cial 2 test se­ries. Hav­ing beat­en them here last month in a two test se­ries quite con­vinc­ing­ly, one has to hope we will come out on top in the se­ries. If the un­think­able were to hap­pen and we lose in Bangladesh, then the Tigers could well be turn­ing around to look at us be­hind them in the rank­ings but that's all in the fu­ture.

I am hop­ing we are at least com­pet­i­tive in the short­er ver­sions of the game in In­dia from this Sun­day, but let us do a lit­tle soul search­ing with this 6 days two test se­ries. Skip­per Ja­son Hold­er (I still feel sor­ry for the young man) says it's hard to take. He can't un­der­stand the rea­son why it is hap­pen­ing and every­one needs to put their heads to­geth­er i.e. the man­age­ment, se­lec­tors and play­ers.

Nice words from Ja­son; he comes across as an ex­treme­ly good, hum­ble and lev­el-head­ed in­di­vid­ual. He is with­out doubt one of the good guys in Windies crick­et. Could you imag­ine if the man be­ing in­ter­viewed was Sir Vi­vian Richards? Do I have to draft a tran­script for the in­ter­view would be like? Quite sim­ply, Ja­son, we have some in­di­vid­u­als who are just not good enough or to put it an­oth­er way, we have square pegs in round holes.

Our bat­ting has some tal­ent but when in three in­nings from four you can't score 200 runs, then se­ri­ous tech­ni­cal prob­lems arise. Kraigg Brath­waite has a good av­er­age of 36.54 with eight cen­turies and 17 half cen­turies in 96 in­nings since mak­ing his de­but in 2011, but af­ter sev­en years he is too in­con­sis­tent. How­ev­er, he thinks he is the rock of Gibral­tar and can­not be dropped so it mat­ters not if he makes 2, 8 or 78, he will still be in the team.

Kier­an Pow­ell al­so made his de­but in 2011 and has an av­er­age of 27.98 with 3 cen­turies and 6 half cen­turies in 72 in­nings - a dis­as­ter. Shai Hope who de­buted in 2015, av­er­ages 30.25 in 45 in­nings with 2 cen­turies and 4 half cen­turies. Ros­ton Chase is 34.80 from 44 in­nings since he de­buted in 2016 with 4 cen­turies and 6 half cen­turies. I will leave Shim­ron Het­my­er and Sunil Am­bris out as they have on­ly bat­ted 16 and 8 in­nings re­spec­tive­ly. Put that in­to con­text with the top 5 In­di­an bats­men all av­er­ag­ing above 40, with the ex­cep­tion of KL Rahul who av­er­ages 37.71 and is in dan­ger of be­ing dropped then Vi­rat Kohli who is in a league of his own with 54.57. We can­not ex­pect 250 and above con­sis­tent­ly from our bats­men with the av­er­ages they pos­sess.

I have pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten that in our bowl­ing out­side of Hold­er who has im­proved con­sid­er­ably, Shan­non Gabriel when he is ag­gres­sive and fir­ing, and Ke­mar Roach when he is fit, we have no test match spin­ners. When our faster men are tired and when the pitch is wear­ing, we have De­ven­dra Bishoo who has a test av­er­age of 37.77 and is a shad­ow of the bowler he was when he made his de­but in 2011. Jomel War­ri­can has on­ly just start­ed his ca­reer in 2015 and has an av­er­age of 46.92. By con­trast, the In­di­an spin­ners Ravi Ash­win on 25.44, Ravin­dra Jade­ja on 23.50 and Kuldeep Ya­dav on 25.26. It is there­fore easy to un­der­stand the huge gap in the abil­i­ty of the test teams. To put it in­to per­spec­tive, a don­key has en­tered a horse race but the own­ers know the don­key can't win.

So what is the so­lu­tion? First­ly, our smil­ing se­lec­tors have to make some brave de­ci­sions, think out­side the box and give oth­er play­ers an op­por­tu­ni­ty. This crop will soon un­der­stand that you are picked by per­for­mance and not by name.

They have to iden­ti­fy some gift­ed 19-21-year-olds from open­ing bats­men, right down to the mid­dle or­der, wick­et­keep­ers, fast men and spin­ners of all types, and train them for 1 year from Sun­day to Sun­day. Get our leg­ends to spend time with them and give them the right kind of train­ing.

It can be done, we just have to set up the right en­vi­ron­ment or 'cra­paud smoke we pipe' as it is the cra­paud who has the lighter in hand to smoke away Windies crick­et at in­ter­na­tion­al test lev­el.

[Flex]

Judge Boodoosingh grants Look Loy leave.
By Derek Achong (Guardian).

T&T Su­per League pres­i­dent Ki­eth Look Loy has been giv­en the green light to kick off his law­suit against the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) over trans­paren­cy in the con­struc­tion of its US$2.5 mil­lion "Home for Foot­ball".

On Fri­day, High Court Judge Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh grant­ed Look Loy leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view claim against the TTFA over the fail­ure of its se­nior of­fi­cials to dis­close de­tails re­lat­ed to the project in Bal­main, Cou­va, to him and oth­er di­rec­tors.

Look Loy filed the case dur­ing the Ju­di­cia­ry's an­nu­al va­ca­tion in Au­gust, but Boodoos­ingh on­ly ruled that he had pre­sent­ed an ar­guable case with a re­al­is­tic prospect of suc­cess, this week.

Boodoos­ingh's rul­ing on the is­sue is on­ly the first stage of the law­suit, which is ex­pect­ed to go on tri­al lat­er this year or ear­ly next year.

In the claim, Look Loy is al­leg­ing that he is en­ti­tled to the in­for­ma­tion which in­cludes fi­nan­cial records and de­tails on the con­trac­tors and project man­ag­er hired for the project.

He is al­so seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that TTFA pres­i­dent David John-Williams and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Justin Lat­apy-George act­ed ir­ra­tional­ly and un­rea­son­ably in re­peat­ed­ly fail­ing to dis­close the in­for­ma­tion.

In an af­fi­davit, that would serve as ev­i­dence in the even­tu­al tri­al, Look Loy claimed that he made sev­er­al re­quests to both men since De­cem­ber, last year, all of which were ig­nored.

"My re­quests for in­spec­tion of the doc­u­ments afore­men­tioned has not been made whim­si­cal­ly to the TTFA in any way, My re­quests have been on­go­ing for at least eight months and are of ut­most im­por­tance to en­sure trans­paren­cy in the in­ter­est of the pub­lic," Look Loy said.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that the de­lays could fa­cil­i­tate tam­per­ing with the doc­u­ments.

"Mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy that I rep­re­sent on the board of the TTFA have ex­pressed to me that they are con­cerned that the re­peat­ed stalling in the pro­vid­ing of the in­for­ma­tion to me, is to fa­cil­i­tate the man­u­fac­ture and the ma­nip­u­la­tion of the fi­nan­cial project records," he said.

In a sup­ple­men­tal af­fi­davit filed last week, Look Loy said he was of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see the re­quest­ed doc­u­ments af­ter he filed the law­suit. How­ev­er, the day be­fore he was ex­pect­ed to do so, he was told he had to sign a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment first. He re­fused.

"I came to the con­clu­sion that the TTFA clear­ly was tak­ing con­tin­u­ing steps to avoid hav­ing to show me the doc­u­ments and in­for­ma­tion I had re­quest­ed and the last minute im­po­si­tion of this pre-con­di­tion on my ac­cess was just an­oth­er step in the process," he said.

Look Loy said that at a board meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 9, he again made a re­quest that was sup­port­ed by Collin Par­tap of the Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CFA), Joseph Tay­lor of the ref­er­ees' as­so­ci­a­tion and Sharon War­rick of the Women's League.

He said that TTFA vice-pres­i­dent Ew­ing Davis re­fused to put the mo­tion to a vote as he claimed that it would re­quire le­gal ad­vice.

Look Loy is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Matthew Gayle, Dr Emir Crowne and Sher­iza Khan of New City Cham­bers.

The "Home for Foot­ball" project is ex­pect­ed to in­clude a 72-room ho­tel, train­ing pitch­es, an en­ter­tain­ment cen­tre and ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices for the as­so­ci­a­tion.

The sod was turned in Sep­tem­ber, last year, with con­struc­tion start­ing in Feb­ru­ary. The project was spon­sored by Fi­fa and is be­ing con­struct­ed on a lit­tle over sev­en hectares of land do­nat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

The project was al­ready at an ad­vanced stage when Fi­fa rep­re­sen­ta­tive Veron Mosen­go-Om­ba and Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe con­duct­ed a tour in Au­gust.

[Tallman]

TTFA Served...Look Loy awaits John-Williams' defence
By Ian Prescott (T&T Express)

TRINIDAD and Tobago Football Association Board member Keith Look Loy has confirmed that documents have been served by the court in relation to his ongoing dispute with the Association and its president, David John-Williams.

Look Loy told reporters yesterday that the court served the documents on Tuesday morning and they (the TTFA and John-Williams) have to respond. 'They have to submit documents to the court indicating why they should not have to give up documents I have been asking for (for) almost a year now, although I am a board member.'

Having won the first round in his battle with TTFA boss David John-Williams, Keith Look Loy said he was awaiting whatever defence, if any, the Association and its president would present after judge Ronnie Boodoosingh ruled on Friday that he (Look Loy) had put forward enough of a case for his legal matter against the Association's president to proceed to the next step.

Look Loy took John-Williams to court seeking the release of documents pertaining to the TTFA's Home of Football in Balmain, Couva among other matters. John-Williams had previously stated that the said documents were available to members, providing a confidentially and non-disclosure clause was signed.

However Look Loy, who is also president of the Trinidad and Tobago Super League, has thus far refused such terms. He argues that as a board member, it is his right to see documents pertaining to the Association's business. 'We had a hearing on the 26th of the month (October) and the judge gave permission to go ahead and file for judicial review, and that hearing is on the 15th of November,' he said.

'I have already made my argument. They have to defend,' Look Loy added. 'Now that the TTFA have been served by the court, they have to respond and try to convince the court that they don't have to give up the documents.'

Despite initial success, Look Loy acknowledges not knowing in what time frame the matter would be determined. 'John-Williams, if he wants, supposedly on behalf of the TTFA, could take this as far as the Privy Council if he wants.'

Look Loy felt he had given the TTFA president every chance to produce the relevant documents, the last time being October 9 at a TTFA meeting when he sought to have a motion put to a vote.

'I guaranteed that if the documents were produced, I would drop the case,' he said.

Meantime, Look Loy also revealed he would proceed with a motion for the removal of John-Williams at the next TTFA AGM, set for November 24. Look Loy listed the action on behalf of his club, FC Santa Rosa. 'Santa Rosa has a motion to dismiss John-Williams at the annual general meeting on the 24th of November, ' he said. 'If he survives that (AGM motion), the TTFA will have an election next year in October.'

[Sando prince]

.
At this stage in TnT we want our next football President to be a man/woman who has a history and already relationships within the private sector. Someone who is professional, someone who is business oriented, someone with a long term vision of success and will implant the necessary elements in our football instructor to develop and seek talent from the grassroots level, Like I said before someone who is "professional" so no issues with having players and coaches paid on time. Someone who will hold himself/herself accountable and hold the men and women beneath him accountable. Someone who will use his private sector experience to help bring forth sponsorship support for national and youth football programs. Someone who is UP TO DATE with TODAY's aspect marketing TT football, which means he will understand the value of social media, television, internet, mainstream radio to intensify momentum behind the national team for future games.

Someone who knows their NO DAMN coach in Trinidad right now that can take our national men and women team out of the deep hole we have thrown ourselves in recent years therefore we need a capable proven foreign coach with his team and he needs to be given full support without any negative interference from the old boys local coaches club or from the TTFA administration. Someone who will have a young local coach eager to learn as an assistant under this foreign coach therefore , once again like I said someone with long term vision will understand this

In the end we do not need someone who has football experience per say, he never had to be a coach or football player.
.

[Flex]

TTFA Home of Football near completion.
T&T Guardian Reports.

A vis­it to the Ato Boldon sta­di­um yes­ter­day showed that the TTFA 72-Room Ho­tel is about 90-per cent com­plet­ed and to­geth­er with the Fa­cil­i­ty Build­ing and the In­come Gen­er­at­ing Project Build­ing (Sports Bar and En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre), all are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by No­vem­ber 30, 2018.

The project has an es­ti­mat­ed bud­get of TT$18 mil­lion. Fol­low­ing that com­ple­tion, the TTFA will then move to have all the build­ings out­fit­ted so that it can start do­ing busi­ness which is ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit all the stake­hold­ers in the sport.

[asylumseeker]

Who is the contractor on the Home of Football project?

[Flex]

TTFA President takes Sporting heads on tour of Home of Football.
TTFA Media.

A US$2.5 million (TT$16.85 million) grant was given to the Trinidad and Tobago  Football Association to build TT football’s new “home.”

President of the TTFA David John-Williams, revealed the price tag of the facility yesterday in a conversation with Newsday during a tour of the “Home of Football”, which is located next to the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva.

John-Williams responded to claims of being secretive on the specifics of building the facility, dismissing them as mischief.

“I have absolutely no problem with transparency in this project. But we took a different approach that a lot of people are not too happy with,” John-Williams said.

“But we live in a society where you will get a lot of criticism. I am not new to it. I am not a president that is well-liked, because of some of the changes. We had to make some really difficult changes that people could not accept. When we came into the Football Association, football was in a bad way, and we had to take drastic decisions that rubbed people in the wrong way. But criticisms would only make me stronger.”

John-Williams expressed pride and gratitude for the progress the multi-million-dollar building project has made, boasting that building would be completed by the end of November, and that final touches would be done by February 2019.

Yesterday, during the tour, John-Williams showed off all the sections of the complex, which include a hotel, an entertainment centre and training grounds.

“This is the future of Trinidad football…This is the future of Trinidad sport!” John-Williams said as he displayed the facility to stakeholders.

During the tour he explained the complex was built using ICF technology, which utilises blocks of Styrofoam filled with concrete to make a cheap, easy-to-use, lightweight and durable building block. He said the blocks would insulate the facility from heat from the outside, making rooms “exceptionally cool.” The largest rooms in the hotel are about 24 feet long by 25 feet wide, Newsday was told.

He said despite the speed at which the buildings were erected, there were no more than 20 contractors working on the site each day.

John-Williams thanked the Government and FIFA for their investment in TT football. The Government supplied the TTFA with the 17.5 acre parcel of land on which the facility stands.

“The Government has supported this project tremendously in giving us what we consider prime land to do these three facilities that we see today. That was a huge help for us…We felt that we needed to prove the government right in building this facility and I hope that we have done such,” John-Williams said

The Home of Football project, he said, was the first fully funded FIFA Forward project — the organisation’s initiative to provide 360-degree, tailor-made support for football development.

The facility was met with excitement from various stakeholders, who included key members of multiple sporting fraternities

“This is of an international standard and I think this is what the sporting fraternity would want,” said Dr Patricia Butcher, president of the TT Netball Association.

“When you are talking sport tourism, we can now invite teams down here and be proud to bring them here to perform and relax. I am hoping we will be able to bless it when we celebrate our 40th anniversary late in 2019 or early in 2020.”

Andrew Gomez-Burke, president of the TT Gymnastics Federation, added, “I travel internationally at all times, and there are no facilities that I have seen that look so complete compared to what I have just witnessed here. I think John-Williams is doing a fantastic job. I could only hope that the other sporting organisations would utilise this facility to its maximum.”

Guardian Report - By Keith Clement

The TTFA showed off its 72-Room Ho­tel, (a Three-sto­ry build­ing) the In­come Gen­er­at­ing Project Build­ing (a sports bar and En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre) and a fa­cil­i­ty build­ing which is 6000 sq feet and will com­priuse (2 dress­ings rooms, a Kitchen, 2 youth dorms (male and fe­male), din­ing room for the youths, laun­dry and two coach­es quar­ters). He said all the build­ings are 90 per cent com­plet­ed.

Among the tour­ing par­ty were Pa­tri­cia and Ken­neth Butch­er (net­ball), Dud­nath Ramkissoon (crick­et), Robert Far­ri­er (cy­cling), Wen­dell Lia Hing (swim­ming) and Andy Gomez-Burk of gym­nas­tics.

John-Williams told guests about the en­gi­neer­ing of the build­ing and ex­plained the ICF tech­nol­o­gy that is be­ing used in the con­struc­tion.

He boast­ed about the en­er­gy us­age and the type of air-con­di­tion sys­tem which will be in­stalled up­on com­ple­tion.

He said, “This build­ing (re­fer­ring to the ho­tel) is earth­quake proof.” He showed them the ma­te­r­i­al be­ing used in the con­struc­tion, the vary­ing sizes of rooms for ath­letes and head of del­e­ga­tions and a dor­mi­to­ry for youths which, he said, can house up to 70 youths.

Asked by Lia Hing when the fa­cil­i­ties will be ready he re­spond­ed: “All con­struc­tion work will be com­plet­ed by No­vem­ber 30, 2018, and then we will fo­cus on out­fit­ting the build­ings for use and busi­ness in the New Year.”

He even jok­ing­ly threw out a chal­lenge of a bet when ques­tioned by two of his guests about the com­ple­tion date. He said, “Let’s take a bet nah”.

Far­ri­er said the fa­cil­i­ty is world class and these are the kind of fa­cil­i­ties which will help cy­cling in its fu­ture plans and pro­grammes and for when teams vis­it T&T.

He said, “I just re­turned from Switzer­land where I saw sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ties. Foot­ball is on the right track and my sport can ben­e­fit from this. I’m re­al­ly im­pressed and like what I am see­ing here to­day. “

Every­one ex­pressed shocked about the fa­cil­i­ties and even its en­gi­neer­ing and de­sign and the thought that went in­to the vi­sion for the fa­cil­i­ties which will al­so have six prac­tice fields.

Ramkissoon, who rep­re­sent­ed the T&T Crick­et Board, said, “It’s re­al­ly im­pres­sive. All sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions can now ben­e­fit from all that they have on of­fer here. This is tru­ly a tremen­dous ef­fort and this fa­cil­i­ty will ben­e­fit sports in T&T. Cou­va is be­com­ing the cen­tre for sports in T&T with cy­cling, swim­ming, the crick­et cen­tre, the Ato Boldon sta­di­um.”

He added: “Even cul­ture can be in­clud­ed with all these world-class fa­cil­i­ties here. Var­i­ous na­tion­al teams can be housed here for rea­son­able rates once they can ne­go­ti­ate with the Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion. I see they (TTFA) al­so have plans for the easy flow of traf­fic in and out of this area. In ad­di­tion, this area is not known to for flood­ing, so you can­not say you will have that kind of thing.”

As the tour con­tin­ued, John-Willaims told his op­po­site num­bers that the project is fund­ed by FI­FA, the world gov­ern­ing body for the sport at a cost of TT$18 mil­lion.

He said, “When I be­came pres­i­dent back in 2015, the TTFA as­sets stood at $149,000 and in 2017 it in­creased to $46 mil­lion and when the home of foot­ball project is com­plet­ed it is es­ti­mat­ed that our as­set base will be around $160 mil­lion.”

Patri­ca Butch­er, of the Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, was very high in praise about the fa­cil­i­ties say­ing: ” This is of in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard. I think this is what the sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty will want. If you’re talk­ing about sports tourism we can in­vite teams down here and feel proud to bring them here to per­form and feel re­lax in an en­vi­ron­ment that is very con­ducive. I’m re­al­ly hap­py to see this. I hope that net­ball will get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bless it when he cel­e­brates our 40th an­niver­sary late in 2019 or ear­ly in 2020. I have just re­turned from Liv­er­pool, Eng­land to see where the 2019 World Cham­pi­onship will take place and this is very com­pa­ra­ble to what is out there in the big coun­tries. We just need some­thing com­pa­ra­ble for net­ball to what ex­ists for net­ball in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

Fol­low­ing that com­ple­tion, the TTFA will then move to have all the build­ings out­fit­ted so that it can start do­ing busi­ness which is ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit all stake­hold­ers in the sport.

John-Williams, a busi­ness­man and con­trac­tor while ad­dress­ing his guests, not­ed, “The aim to make this a three-star ho­tel. What we’ve here is the fu­ture of foot­ball, the fu­ture of sports. Sports have to start think­ing big busi­ness, and think­ing dif­fer­ent­ly and be­ing in­de­pen­dent. I must thank the gov­ern­ment for sup­port­ing us in this ini­tia­tive. This fa­cil­i­ties have mas­sive cor­po­rate po­ten­tial such as nam­ing rights, we can rent the fa­cil­i­ties to com­pa­nies, and fel­low sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and get ser­vice providers in­volved.”

He end­ed by say­ing: “We’ll have a wall of fame, a foot­ball mu­se­um. The rooms will bear the names of foot­ballers and the walls will sport pic­tures of our foot­ball he­roes. When teams vis­it and stay here they must feel in­tim­i­dat­ed.”

Home of Football and Income Generation Project End of Week 38 Update

[Tallman]

TTFA agrees to pay Couva hotel in instalments
By Jada Loutoo (T&T Newsday)

THE TT Football Association (TTFA) has agreed to pay $207,174.88 to a hotel in Couva in 12 equal instalments, starting from November 30.

The agreement was arrived at on Wednesday, and communicated to High Court judge Frank Seepersad, who signed off on it.

According to the Metro Hotel’s lawsuit against the TTFA, it provided accommodation and meals for the TT men’s under-20 football team, the Barbados men’s senior team, for various periods between January to April, last year.

The TTFA said it could not pay the amount owed on the invoices in one lump sum, and agreed to pay instalments.

According to its financial statements, the TTFA said it earned an annual income of $24,657,919 annually,but its expenses were calculated at $26,598,766. Technical expenses were put at $5,745,320 while its loan and borrowings amounted to just over $4 million, and accounts payable was put at just over $30 million.

In its lawsuit, Metro Hotel, of Noel Street, Couva, said it made several attempts to contact TTFA president David John-Williams, and the TTFA had refused to settle the invoices sent for payment.

The hotel was represented by attorney Kelvin Ramkissoon and Nizam Saladeen. The TTFA was represented by Annand Misir and Janelle Ganess.

[Tallman]

Back to Court: Look Loy pressing on with bid to remove John-Williams
By Ian Prescott (T&T Express)
 
BOARD member Keith Look Loy will proceed with his November 24 motion for the dismissal of Trinidad and Tobago Football Association president David John-Williams, regardless of today's outcome of a judicial review matter against the Association in the High Court.

Despite two previously unsuccessful attempts to have John-Williams ousted, Look Loy has successfully had a motion for John-William's dismissal, tabled for the TTFA's Annual General Meeting which, according to General Secretary Justin Latapy-George, is carded for November 24 from 9:30am at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

Latapy-George confirmed that Look Loy's motion was one of 20 or so agenda matters due for discussion.

"The constitution guides that once a member submits a matter for consideration by the general membership within the specific time line of at least 40 days prior to the AGM, then that matter must be put on the agenda for discussion," Latapy-George stated.

Look Loy also believes his motion for John-Williams' dismissal is gaining momentum but whether he has the 75 per cent backing of the general membership needed to unseat the TTFA President is uncertain.

"It will get support too. I don't know if it will get enough because to be effective it has to get 75 percent of the vote," Look Loy admitted. "But I know it will get support, based on what people have said to me."

Today's court matter could also strengthen Look Loy's hand. At an October 26 hearing, judge Ronnie Boodoosingh granted T&T Super League president Look Loy leave to pursue judicial review against the TTFA and John-Williams over the failure to disclose financial records pertaining to the Home of Football project at Balmain Couva. Today the parties return to the High Court from 10:30am with the TTFA having to present a case as to why the records should not be handed over.

With no certainty that the matter will be concluded today, Look Loy nevertheless vowed to press on with the motion to remove John-Williams, regardless of what happens in court today. However, a positive outcome will give Look Loy access to the Home of Football.

"Once the judge declares that he has to make the document available, I want to see them the next day," Look Loy declared. "But If he doesn't want to abide by the court, he could be in contempt of court and face the consequences."

The Home of Football is being built by a USS2.5 million FIFA grant on 18 acres of land at Couva donated by the Trinidad and Tobago Government. Both FIFA and Sport Minis-er Shamfa Cudjoe have endorsed the work done thus far on the project.

And during a tour of the facility just last week, officials from cricket, swimming, cycling. gymnastics and athletics congratulated John-Williams on the speed and quality of the work in building the facility, whose foundation was laid only on February 14.

"The issue here is not the Home of Football. My issue is the lack of accountability in the implementation of the project," Look Loy stated. "Who is being given contracts? Who is awarding contracts? How much money is being spent? Nobody but David John-Williams knows." It is irrelevant what impact it (Home of Football) has on people from other NGOs. They have no influence in football."

[Flex]

TTFA members reject ‘Home of Football’ invitation.
By Andrew Gioannetti (Newsday).

CFA, NFA, SSFL, WoLF call for transparency

SEVERAL members of the TT Football Association (TTFA) board of directors and other ordinary members have blanked an invitation by TTFA president David John-Williams to visit the controversial "Home of Football" project.

On Wednesday, TTFA general secretary Justin Latapy-George, on behalf of John-Williams, issued an invitation to all members of the TTFA to a site-visit, advising of three open dates of their choice – yesterday, today and on Monday.

They were given a deadline of Thursday to respond to the invitation, at which point several members declined via email.

Newsday obtained a number of responses to Latapy-George, one of which came from TT Super League president Keith Look Loy, who currently has a matter with John-Williams before the High Court.

Look Loy was recently granted leave for judicial review in the court to compel John-Williams to release documents on the "Home of Football" project as well as other unrelated TTFA financial records and statements.

The court matter was scheduled to begin on Thursday but was rescheduled to November 30.

Look Loy also proposed a motion for the dismissal of John-Williams at the TTFA's November 24 AGM, which has been tabled in the agenda by Latapy-Williams.

The same day he received the invitation, Look Loy responded to Latapy-George, writing: "Keith Look Loy will visit the project when the TTFA president accounts to the TTFA membership for the expenditure of the membership's money.

"All of this propaganda won't erase the lack of accountability in this project...Macoya has nice buildings also and no one knew what was happening with the project finances then. Those who wish to ignore that example are doomed to repeat it."

Northern Football Association president Anthony Harford, an ordinary TTFA member, also dismissed the invitation in an elaborate response.

"I would welcome a visit to the Home of Football when the following happens: the president reveals who the contractor(s) is; when the president reveals the financials for this project; when stakeholders see a business plan for the home of football; when Delise Joseph who was sent home after 23 years service to the TTFA and a year later has been paid just $30,000 of her agreed retirement of $196,000. She faces ejection from her rented home," he wrote, adding, "This is not political dexterity it is sham, it is breathtakingly disingenuous and lamentable leadership."

Clynt Taylor, general secretary of the Central Football Association (CFA), wrote to Latapy-George on behalf of the body, chiding the administration in his decline to the invitation.

"CFA and its officials would love to entertain a visit of the Home of Football and look forward to a visit, however, this visit can only take place when this administration is guided by the mandate of the General meeting to provide openness, transparency and providing the information requested by members who are within their constitutional rights to request.

"Without this measure of openness and transparency and this administration mandate to follow the explicit will of our constitution and the General Membership direction, CFA and its Administration respectfully declines."

Secondary Schools Football League president Williams Wallace and Women's League Football (Wolf) vice-president and representative Sharon Warrick also opted out of the visit.

Wallace's response read, "There are too many unanswered questions pertaining to this project and many other issues, It is with a heavy heart therefore that I decline the invitation," while Warrick similarly wrote: "I will not be part of this. I will welcome an invitation to view The Home of Football, when all documents that have been requested are submitted for the board to review."

John-Williams has been accused by members of his own board of operating the TTFA in a unilateral and secretive manner. Look Loy has claimed to have asked John-Williams for information on the project, which is in its final stages of construction, since last December.

During a tour with the media at the Couva site of the project recently, John-Williams was quoted as saying, "I have absolutely no problem with transparency in this project. But we took a different approach that a lot of people are not too happy with."

However, John-Williams recently attempted to have Look Loy sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to access documents. Look Loy refused to do so and opted to continue with his High Court pursuit.

Look Loy continues to insist he will drop the court matter, considering the TTFA's mounting legal expenses, if John-Williams releases the documents related to the project.

The project is said to have cost an estimated US$2.5 million and is being paid for with a FIFA grant on land leased by the T&T government.

[Tallman]

Jason Gordon: Officials don't care about T&T football
By Walter Alibey (T&T Guardian)

Ja­son Gor­don, the Met­al X Erin FC own­er and man­ag­er has called for the right peo­ple to be put in charge of foot­ball lo­cal­ly when the elec­tion of of­fi­cers of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) is held next year.

Gor­don's Erin FC which won the South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (SFA) League and League Cup ti­tles last year, said the sport has been at its low­est in T&T.

"While foot­ball con­tin­ues to suf­fer at the re­gion­al, as­so­ci­a­tion and youth lev­els, of­fi­cials seem to be more con­cerned with the con­struc­tion of a Home of Foot­ball.

"In the south zone, we are yet to re­ceive pay­ment for our win­nings last year, while there is yet to be as­sis­tance for the re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions."

Gor­don told Guardian Me­dia Sports that teams are al­so un­sure to re­ceive monies this year in the SFA al­so, while in the East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU), there was no foot­ball this year.

"Such a large area to cater for, yet the EC­FU couldn't reach out to thou­sands of young, tal­ent­ed play­ers be­cause there was no help from the par­ent TTFA," Gor­don ex­plained.

Erin FC which earned pro­mo­tion to the T&T Su­per League (TTSL) this year, be­fore they pulled out be­cause of their in­abil­i­ty to pay play­ers match fees, has called on the TTFA to fo­cus more on the re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions which are the feed­er pro­grammes for na­tion­al teams, TTSL clubs, T&T Pro League teams and schools in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League.

Gor­don's team is still owed $22,000 for its $15,000 and $7,000 win­nings in the SFA League and League Cup tour­na­ments last year. Pitch­men FC, which cap­tured the Ex­ec­u­tive Cup is al­so owed $7,000 in prizes.

"We need now to elect peo­ple who care about the sport and care about the sports­men and women in the sport. As it is now, there is too much pol­i­tics which has led to ne­glect of the sport on the field. We need on­ly to look at the re­sults of our women foot­ballers and the Un­der-20 team at the CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fiers re­cent­ly, as well as the state of our youth foot­ball to recog­nise the demise of the sport," Gor­don said.

[Tallman]

All eyes on TTFA AGM
By Andrew Gioannetti (T&T Newsday)

A MOTION to dismiss president of the TT Football Association (TTFA) David John-Williams is tabled for today’s highly anticipated annual general meeting, which takes place at UWI, St Augustine at 9 am, but TT Super League president and member of the board of directors, Keith Look Loy – who proposed the motion – will need the backing of a simple majority.

Citing Article 38 of the TTFA constitution, Look Loy submitted the proposal for a dismissal of the president to TTFA general secretary Justin Latapy-George in September, beyond the 40-day requirement for its tabling.

Article 38 of the constition states: “Any Board of Directors Member may submit a proposal to place such a motion for dismissal on the agenda of the Board of Directors or General Meeting.” It also says the motion must be justified; the person or body in question has the right to defend him or herself; the motion shall be decided by secret ballot; a majority of three quarters of the valid votes is required for it to be passed; and, the person or body dismissed (provisionally) is relieved of his or its functions with immediate effect.

However, in order for it to be included in the final agenda, a member must move the motion and another member must second it, then acquire a majority of 50 per cent and at least one additional member to seal the variation.

Look Loy is hoping to secure the vote and a majority to dismiss John-Williams.

He, however, is uncertain whether members, who have previously expressed disapproval of the administration’s day-to-day dealings, will “step up to the plate.”

“People tell you all kinds of things but in the crunch, in the moment, God alone knows what will happen,” he said.

“I know that we have support among some of the regional associations. We have support in the Super League and the Pro League.” In his September letter to Latapy-George, Look Loy gave a point-by-point rationale for his proposal for John-Williams’ dismissal.

It said, “Unilateral decision-making by the President, ‘one-manism’ with no consultation of, and/or agreement by, the TTFA Board of Directors, for example contracts supposedly awarded in the ‘Home of Football’ project, purchase of service from radio I95.5FM; Steady deterioration of TTFA’s national teams’ programme—we no longer win in the international arena and are no longer a force, even in CFU; Cronyism in the appointment of national teams/programmes technical and administrative staff; Mismanagement of TTFA’s finances—witness the debacle of the 2016 audit, the ongoing inability to pay staff and players and to maintain programmes; Frivolous accumulation of law suits and the various expenses associated with same, for example Carolina Morace, Sheldon Phillips, Stephen Hart, etc—due to poor management and illegal actions;

“Lack of transparency in administrative and financial matters—legitimate requests for information from members almost invariably go unanswered, for example the ongoing failure to present documents from the works on the ‘Home of Football’; Deterioration of league football—from elite to regional—and an absence of appropriate guidance and support from TTFA; International shame brought upon our country by the attempt to blame the US embassy for the debacle of our women’s U-15 team being withdrawn from the Concacaf tournament, due to TTFA’s failure to secure US visas, and the Embassy’s denial of such claims.”

In addition to the numerous lawsuits faced by the association, is one brought against it by Look Loy, who is scheduled for a High Court matter with John-Williams next month, which was brought about in an effort to have the president release documents related to the “Home of Football” project in Couva, as well as other TTFA financial documents. Look Loy said he has requested such accounts and documents related to the controversial project since last December.

[Deeks]

Goood luck! on that Keith!!!

[Flex]

Annual General Meeting has been adjourned again.
TTFA Media.

The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association is advising all stakeholders that the Annual General Meeting has been adjourned to December 9th, 2018 at 10:00 am.

This comes  after the successful completion of nine  items on the agenda of today’s meeting which took place at the UWI Faculty Lounge -The Faculty of Social Sciences.

The items covered were as follows:

– Roll Call
– Declaration that the Annual General Meeting has been convened and composed in compliance with the Constitution.
– Approval of the Agenda.
– Address by the President David John-Williams.
-Appointment of delegates to check the minutes.
– Appointment of scrutineers (for the President’s Address)
-Suspension of explosion of members (Nothing for Discussion).
– Audit report presented by Auditor and approved by the General Membership
– Election of the Members of the Board of Directors (Rayshawn Mars [Northern FA), Bandele Kamau [Eastern FA], Colin Partap [Central FA], Sharon Warrick [WOLF] and Julia Baptiste [TT Pro League].
–  Business arising from the Approval of the minutes of the preceding general meetings (Incomplete as the meeting was adjourned during this process.

RELATED NEWS

TTFA AGM adjourned after 'painstaking' deliberations.
By Stephon Nicholas (Newsday).

PRESIDENT of the TT Football Association (TTFA) will not face a motion for his dismissal – at least until December 9 – after Saturday's Annual General Meetings (AGM) was adjourned following seven hours of discussions.

The motion to dismiss John-Williams was proposed for the AGM by president of FC Santa Rosa and member of the TTFA board of directors, Keith Look Loy. However, members agreed to adjourn the matter, along with several others, for the reconvened meeting in two weeks.

Saturday's meeting began with John-Williams addressing the membership on several matters and defending his leadership.

According to Look Loy, he blamed previous administrations for the current administration's financial standing, saying large debts were inherited. He also addressed the Home of Football's revenue potential and according to Look Loy, chided him for his statements made in public with regard to the controversial FIFA-funded project in Couva.

"I responded to that, of course, making the point that nobody is against the Home of Football. What we are against is the culture of secrecy that is being continued from past administrations under his administration."

Look Loy said John-Williams also addressed the struggling men's national team but distanced his administration from blame.

"I made the point that while he may be talking about the collapse or the failure of the men's team, I wanted to talk about the national teams' programmes: the Under-15 women, the [senior] women's national team, the Under-20 men. It has all gone into free-fall under his leadership.

"His address did not talk about the failure of the coach education, the failure of the grass-roots programme which is sponsored but cannot pay coaches working in it. Don't mind that there is sponsorship from Nu Iron, and other things as well – the lack of transparency in financial matters. The referees are saying that FIFA is sending money that is not filtering to their programmes. So the matters of financial transparency not only arise but abound and increase. He mentioned none of this."

Minutes of the last AGM were discussed after the break.

"(It was)...painstaking, page by page. That's the TTFA culture. We have minutes going back to 2017.

"Now, how can people reasonably discuss minutes of events that took place more than a year ago, going back to March 2017? You now bringing the minutes. That's to show you the quagmire that the TTFA administration is."

In addition, despite the constitution making no explicit mention of provisional members' eligibility to vote and perform other functions, a proposal was made by FC Santa Rosa, and is expected to be sealed by an amendment to the constitution, granting full rights to the members. That will expressly permit the Eastern FA, Central FA, Northern FA and Women's Football (WoLF and any future board representative full rights should they be replaced during their tenure.