An An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion was stopped af­ter mem­bers be­came ag­i­tat­ed by ac­cu­sa­tions that T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers were il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing po­si­tions well be­yond their al­lot­ted time.

Sat­ur­day’s AGM, which was chaired by Vice Pres­i­dent Co­dring­ton Joe­field, heard sub­mis­sions from three non-fi­nan­cial mem­bers—for­mer box­ers Kirt Sin­nette and Kevin De­noon, the coach of the Po­lice Box­ing Team, and coach Pat­ter­son Math­ews—that at least four ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the box­ing as­so­ci­a­tion, in­clu­sive of pres­i­dent Ce­cil Forde and coach Reynolds Cox, were in breach of the TT­BA Con­sti­tu­tion, which en­ables mem­bers to serve a max­i­mum of four times.

A re­lease is­sued by Sin­nette, De­noon, and Math­ews states, “The T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion held an An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing at the Cos­mic Box­ing Gym in Mara­bel­la. Af­ter read­ing and con­firm­ing the pre­vi­ous min­utes, Mr Kevin De­noon quot­ed Ar­ti­cle 33, Tenure of Of­fice, which states:

33.1 The Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee mem­ber’s term shall last for three (3) years, start­ing af­ter the end of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly which elect­ed them.

33.2 An ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber may be elect­ed four (4) times.”

“Ac­cord­ing to Mr Kevin De­noon, who ed­i­fied the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, name­ly Ce­cil Forde, De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar and Reynold Cox, have been hold­ing po­si­tions with­in the as­so­ci­a­tion for more than 12 years, hence act­ing ul­tra vires to the con­sti­tu­tion. Up­on a clos­er re­view, Ce­cil Forde has been in of­fice since the ear­ly 1990s, op­er­at­ing in the role of Vice Pres­i­dent un­der Mike Jarvis’s tenure. De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar has been hold­ing of­fice since 2000, while Reynold Cox has held of­fice since 2010.”

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Cox ac­cused the non-fi­nan­cial mem­bers of breach­ing the con­sti­tu­tion. “I am aware of re­cent pub­lic state­ments made by in­di­vid­u­als who are not bona fide fi­nan­cial mem­bers of the As­so­ci­a­tion. These in­di­vid­u­als have no stand­ing to speak on be­half of the TT­BA or to raise ob­jec­tions un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. As per Ar­ti­cle 13.1, any mem­ber who takes in­ter­nal mat­ters to the me­dia with­out first ad­dress­ing them through the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee or Gen­er­al As­sem­bly is con­sid­ered to have re­neged from the As­so­ci­a­tion and is sub­ject to dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

“The TT­BA re­mains com­mit­ted to trans­paren­cy, fair­ness, and con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­er­nance. We en­cour­age all con­cerns to be raised through the prop­er chan­nels by bona fide mem­bers in good stand­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia Sports was told that De­noon is the lone mem­ber of the three who has a func­tion­al gym but has not ho­n­oured his fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions to the TT­BA for the last two years. Forde said Sin­nette, who con­test­ed the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion for Con­gress of the Peo­ple in Port-of-Spain South, and who is sup­posed to be at­tached to the East Port-of-Spain Fight­ing Chance Box­ing Gym, has not at­tend­ed any box­ing tour­na­ments and he’s not a fi­nan­cial mem­ber, while Matthews has no gym of his own.

“They are not in good stand­ing and there­fore have no voice and no say in the TT­BA,” Cox said.

Cox al­so slammed the non-mem­bers for mak­ing ac­cu­sa­tions with­out proof, say­ing their claims were un­found­ed. “We had to make some changes in the con­sti­tu­tion over the years to con­form to AI­BA, so that’s our ex­ist­ing con­sti­tu­tion. Some­where around 2018, we made changes to the con­sti­tu­tion to fall in line with AI­BA’s con­sti­tu­tion; that clause was amend­ed and put in.”

“They’re talk­ing about things that you have to bring ev­i­dence for. If you’re say­ing that some­one served more than four terms, then who are the per­sons, when did they serve from, when was the con­sti­tu­tion amend­ed, and when was that clause amend­ed and put in? If you can’t prove these things, then why go about mak­ing bac­cha­nal, and you are not even pay­ing your an­nu­al dues, etc?” Cox said.