TTFA 'League Of Champions' in disarray

On the League's open­ing day Sun­day, some match­es did not have any of­fi­cial ref­er­ees, while oth­ers had to be post­poned.

The Unit­ed TTFA, in a re­lease on Mon­day said the league was put on to help in­cum­bent TTFA pres­i­dent David John-Williams with his elec­tion cam­paign on No­vem­ber 24.

"Unit­ed TTFA wish­es to un­der­line the ab­ject­ly po­lit­i­cal na­ture and tim­ing of the League of Cham­pi­ons launched by the David John-Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion ahead of the TTFA elec­tions of 24 No­vem­ber. This com­pe­ti­tion, which has noth­ing to do with the de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal club game and every­thing to do with John-Williams shod­dy elec­tion cam­paign, kicked off yes­ter­day with­out TTFA ref­er­ees."

The re­lease stat­ed al­so that the match be­tween De­fence Force and Laven­tille Unit­ed FC was played with three un­of­fi­cial ref­er­ees sup­plied by De­fence Force, as no TTFA ref­er­ees turned up. And the match be­tween Po­lice FC and Mara­bel­la FCC was played with two un­of­fi­cial Po­lice as­sis­tant ref­er­ees, as for yet an­oth­er time, as there were no TTFA ref­er­ees at the venue.

It not­ed "The match be­tween Guaya Unit­ed FC and Harlem Strik­ers FC was played with un­of­fi­cial ref­er­ees ap­point­ed by both teams. No TTFA ref­er­ees turned up. The match be­tween 1976 Phoenix FC and Youth Stars FC was post­poned be­cause the for­mer is play­ing in the TT Pro League FCB Cup, i.e. play­ing with one team in two TTFA com­pe­ti­tions si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly."

"The match be­tween Matu­ra Re­unit­ed FC and Cen­tral Soc­cer World was played with un­of­fi­cial ref­er­ees ap­point­ed by both teams. No TTFA ref­er­ees turned up. And the match be­tween Moru­ga FC and "Na­tion­al Team" was post­poned. In this re­gard, Unit­ed TTFA un­der­stands the "Na­tion­al Team" re­ferred to in the fix­tures is the na­tion­al Un­der-15 team. The play­ers have been re­quired to reg­is­ter."

The Unit­ed TTFA group which has al­ready rolled out an im­pres­sive plan to man­age the af­fairs of the sport from No­vem­ber 24 should they be elect­ed, has called John-Williams to clar­i­fy why na­tion­al team would com­prise 14 and 15 years olds, which they con­sid­er to be a trans­gres­sion of every prin­ci­ple of child phys­i­o­log­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and every re­quire­ment for the de­vel­op­ment of young tal­ents.

The group be­lieves the stag­ing of the League of Cham­pi­ons is a show of ut­ter dis­re­spect for all TTFA ref­er­ee bod­ies, by not ap­proach­ing them to dis­cuss ref­er­ee ser­vices and the pay­ment