The T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA) will head to the elec­tion polls on Sep­tem­ber 23, more than a year since long-stand­ing box­ing ad­min­is­tra­tor Ce­cil Forde and his ex­ec­u­tive were re­turned to of­fice.

The TT­BA was ac­cused of amend­ing its con­sti­tu­tion in a move that en­abled mem­bers to oc­cu­py of­fice well be­yond the term lim­its. As a re­sult, five gyms or­dered the mat­ter to be cleared, and the TT­BA, ac­cord­ing to its con­sti­tu­tion, called a Spe­cial Gen­er­al Meet­ing on Sat­ur­day, which led to a de­ci­sion to call fresh elec­tions. The meet­ing took place at the Cos­mic Box­ing Gym in St James Street, Mara­bel­la.

The TT­BA con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides a 60-day time­frame from the date the spe­cial meet­ing is held. Nom­i­na­tion will, how­ev­er, be­gin 30 days from the same date. How­ev­er, the elec­tion cam­paign can be forced to take place amid a le­gal bat­tle af­ter the as­so­ci­a­tion’s as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Vic­ki Boodram, is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Forde, claim­ing her name was men­tioned in a de­ci­sion to amend the con­sti­tu­tion.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Forde re­fused to com­ment on the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia Sports learnt that two amend­ments were made by the TT­BA over the past sev­en years.

The first in 2018 sought to align the as­so­ci­a­tion with its world gov­ern­ing body for am­a­teur and Olympic box­ing—AI­BA. And for the first time, amend­ments were made to the con­sti­tu­tion to in­clude term lim­its. Reynold Cox, an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the TT­BA, as­sured that be­fore the 2018 meet­ing, AI­BA mem­bers could have oc­cu­pied of­fice for­ev­er. “So as of 2018, mem­bers could not oc­cu­py of­fice for more than two terms,” Cox ex­plained.

The sec­ond change made to the con­sti­tu­tion fol­lowed a de­ci­sion by the TT­BA to be­come com­pli­ant with World Box­ing (WB), up­on the de­ci­sion by the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) not to recog­nise AI­BA as the body for Olympic box­ing.

Cox as­sured that the re­cent de­ci­sion to change its con­sti­tu­tion from AI­BA to WB came af­ter the TT­BA re­ceived the go-ahead from 12 of its 19 mem­bers, which rep­re­sents more than 50 per cent, to make the name change to WB, which was even­tu­al­ly done.

Boodram, rep­re­sent­ed by At­tor­ney-at-Law Rus­sell Seecha­ran, in her pre-ac­tion pro­to­col to TT­BA pres­i­dent Forde, vice pres­i­dent Co­dring­ton Joe­field, and gen­er­al sec­re­tary De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar, stat­ed, “That on March 22nd, 2025, the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA) arranged an ur­gent spe­cial meet­ing that was held specif­i­cal­ly to deal with the re­vi­sion of statutes to re­move IBA/AI­BA as the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Olympic Box­ing.”

“That Ce­cil Forde, Co­dring­ton Joe­field, and De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar con­spired to­geth­er and fraud­u­lent­ly fab­ri­cat­ed that my client was present at the said meet­ing and that my client made a mo­tion to the mem­bers present to amend the cur­rent con­sti­tu­tion and ex­clude AI­BA/IBA.”

“That Ce­cil Forde, Co­dring­ton Joe­field, and De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar fraud­u­lent­ly stat­ed that my client’s mo­tion was unan­i­mous­ly agreed to by the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers present.”

And “That the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers present adopt­ed the mo­tion raised by my client and used this as the foun­da­tion to amend the con­sti­tu­tion of the TT­BA.”

Mean­while, the TT­BA, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse via let­ter, said, “We have du­ly not­ed the con­tents of the let­ter and here­by ad­vise that, giv­en the fact that all per­sons con­cerned are mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA) and there­fore will con­tin­ue to have a long-term re­la­tion­ship. We be­lieve it is in the best in­ter­est of both par­ties to set­tle this mat­ter am­i­ca­bly. We do wish to set­tle this mat­ter am­i­ca­bly and will at­tempt to do so, in­so­far as the facts are con­cerned. No dam­age or in­jury to Ms. Boodram’s char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty was ever in­tend­ed, nor was there any fraud­u­lent or wil­ful mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion done.”

“With re­spect to the said meet­ing held on March 22nd, 2025, held at the Cos­mic Box­ing Gym in Mara­bel­la, we cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly state that Ms. Vic­ki Boodram was not present, nor­did she par­tic­i­pate or con­tribute to the said meet­ing as re­flect­ed in the said min­utes. How­ev­er, we are re­fut­ing any no­tion that we were fraud­u­lent in con­text or mis­rep­re­sent­ed the in­ter­ests of the mem­ber­ship.”

“We will un­der­score that as an Ex­ec­u­tive Body of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, we have al­ways act­ed in the in­ter­est and the bet­ter­ment of the sport. On many oc­ca­sions, meet­ings or dis­cus­sions have been held on the phone, where in­for­ma­tion is shared, con­sen­sus is ob­tained, and de­ci­sions are made. The said min­utes and the is­sue of con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments were cir­cu­lat­ed to mem­bers for their ap­proval. Ms Boodram, be­ing the as­sis­tant sec­re­tary, should have been aware of this. Twelve gyms re­spond­ed in writ­ing to the af­fir­ma­tive of the name change.”

“On March 22nd, 2025, ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers dis­cussed on the phone, ex­cept Nigel Paul and Vic­ki Boodram. Your client holds the po­si­tion of As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary, and in this cir­cum­stance, knew or ought to have known or at least been aware of this.”

“The change that was re­quired was on­ly an ad­min­is­tra­tive and ty­po­graph­i­cal re­quire­ment by our world gov­ern­ing body, WORLD BOX­ING (WB). It re­quired the re­moval of the acronym and re­plac­ing it with ‘WB.’ It is now re­gret­ted that a vir­tu­al meet­ing was pre­sent­ed as an ac­tu­al phys­i­cal meet­ing, and the in­clu­sion of Ms Vic­ki Boodram and Nigel Paul, who were not present, is now re­gret­ted. Nev­er­the­less, we are will­ing to ne­go­ti­ate any sort of dam­age con­trol to ap­pease Ms. Boodram at her con­ve­nience as soon as pos­si­ble. We trust that all dis­cus­sions go­ing for­ward will be done in good faith.”