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Thu, Mar

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Busi­ness­man Lyn­d­say Gillette was vot­ed chair­man of the foot­ball com­mis­sion to steer T&T foot­ball in­to a new era. The com­mis­sion was set up on the ad­vice of FI­FA/CON­CA­CAF/UE­FA of­fi­cials who vis­it­ed T&T to give rec­om­men­da­tions on ways to im­prove the sport. One of the rec­om­men­da­tions was to have a sin­gle man­age­ment team from the su­per league, pro league and TTFA to over­see the man­age­ment op­er­a­tions of a tier one and tier two foot­ball com­pe­ti­tions.

The vote was tak­en at a re­cent meet­ing held among the mem­bers com­pris­ing two rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the T&T Pro League, two from the T&T Su­per League, two in­de­pen­dents and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, in Port-of-Spain.

Tony Har­ford of All Sports Pro­mo­tions was the last in­de­pen­dent pick for the Com­mis­sion, join­ing Gillette, the cur­rent pres­i­dent of T&T Am­a­teur Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion is al­so an in­de­pen­dent.

The oth­er Com­mis­sion mem­bers are Kei­th Look Loy and George Joseph of the TTSL, Brent San­cho of Cen­tral FC and Ja­mal Shabazz of Mor­vant Cale­do­nia pro clubs as the two pro league rep­re­sen­ta­tives while An­tho­ny Moore of the To­ba­go FA will be the TTFA rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

An ear­li­er re­port stat­ed in this news­pa­pers had stat­ed that Shel­don Phillips, the sacked TTFA gen­er­al sec­re­tary, was tipped to be one of the in­de­pen­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tives and that he was in line to be­come the chair­man, but Phillips was on­ly a con­sid­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, it is un­der­stood that the com­mis­sion has made tremen­dous progress to date, as it is in the process of for­mu­lat­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing among the par­ties in­volved.

San­cho told Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed that the meet­ings have been fruit­ful as every­one is fo­cused on cre­at­ing the best foot­ball prod­uct from the merg­ing of the pro league, su­per league and TTFA.

San­cho is al­so call­ing for sug­ges­tions for the name of the new league/leagues, al­though one has al­ready been giv­en to them.

Mean­while, the re­main­der of the T&T Youth Pro League will be ded­i­cat­ed in ho­n­our of Richard Fakoory, a mem­ber of the Board of the T&T Pro League re­vealed yes­ter­day, a day af­ter a meet­ing.

Fakoory, who was chair­man of the T&T Pro League, died last week Wednes­day from an aneurysm which came af­ter he had a mi­nor surgery to fix a block­age in his ab­domen at the West­shore Med­ical Hos­pi­tal in Co­corite.

The mem­bers of the pro league were search­ing for a suit­able way to ho­n­our him for the work he has done over the past 40 years, but on Wednes­day at a pro league meet­ing in Port-of-Spain, it was agreed to ded­i­cate the rest of the youth pro league in his ho­n­our, at least in the short term, the mem­ber said.

The mem­ber, who is a mem­ber of the pro league board, said fur­ther dis­cus­sions will take place to find a suit­able way to ho­n­our Fakoory in the long term.

So far it has been agreed that all the tro­phies will be named af­ter him, apart from the youth league be­ing ded­i­cat­ed to him. This he said was agreed up­on unan­i­mous­ly as the St Ann's Rangers founder and di­rec­tor had com­mit­ted his en­tire life to­ward youth de­vel­op­ment.

"Richard was a stick­ler for youth de­vel­op­ment. He tru­ly want­ed to help the young peo­ple of T&T through sports, so we felt it would have been ap­pro­pri­ate to take this step," the mem­ber said. The meet­ing was al­so held to up­date its mem­bers on what was hap­pen­ing, and to be­gin dis­cus­sions for a new chair­man.