As the pe­ti­tions for the Sep­tem­ber 15 Emer­gency Gen­er­al Meet­ing (EGM) gains mo­men­tum, ques­tions are be­ing asked about the sta­tus of some of the as­so­ci­a­tions who have signed as mem­bers and as del­e­gates.

The lat­est news from Kieron Ed­wards, pres­i­dent of East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (EFA) who de­liv­ered the pe­ti­tions said yes­ter­day, more mem­bers and del­e­gates have signed on for the meet­ing to take place.

The FI­FA dead­line is just nine days away for the for­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his team which com­pris­es vice pres­i­dents - Clynt Tay­lor, Su­san Joseph-War­rick and Joseph Sam Phillip, to­geth­er with Kei­th Look Loy, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Su­per League and An­tho­ny Har­ford, the pres­i­dent of the North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NFA), to drop their le­gal bat­tle against FI­FA here in T&T High court and go back to the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) which is based in Zurich, Switzer­land, ac­cord­ing to both FI­FA Statutes and the TTFA con­sti­tu­tion, or face sanc­tions.

In re­sponse to the pe­ti­tion­ers called for the EGM, Look Loy, the for­mer chair­man of the TTFA tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee, post­ed on his Face­book page re­cent­ly that: "The fact is that, Beach, Fut­sal, EC­FU (East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union), SFA and VF­FOTT (Vet­er­ans Foot­ball Foun­da­tion of T&T) don't even have ten mem­bers among them. These are PA­PER or­gan­i­sa­tions that speak for peo­ple that hold of­fice in them, but col­lec­tive­ly have ten del­e­gates among them. Jokes I ain't at­tend­ing ANY meet­ing they called via a mock­ing pre­tender."

In re­sponse, one of the del­e­gates for EC­FU, Ian Prichard said on Sun­day, "I can state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that the EC­FU is ful­ly func­tion­al. As a mat­ter of fact, we not on­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the last TTFA elec­tion of No­vem­ber 24, 2019 but al­so had ac­tive com­pe­ti­tion as up to the 2019 foot­ball sea­son."

He con­tin­ued, "It is the be­lief of the EC­FU Ex­ec­u­tive that the Unit­ed TTFA should at­tend the meet­ing not mere­ly to an­swer ques­tions of the mem­ber­ship but to clear the air on any am­bi­gu­i­ty sur­round­ing per­ti­nent na­tion­al foot­ball is­sues that are un­clear and in the pub­lic do­main. We be­lieve that it is im­por­tant for the Unit­ed TTFA to share with the mem­ber­ship the rea­son for their present course of ac­tion based on the fact that it seems to have been made on be­half of the as­so­ci­a­tion."

Pritchard, a for­mer Min­istry of Sports of­fi­cial added, "The great­est con­cern of the EC­FU re­gard­ing pos­si­ble FI­FA sanc­tions is the neg­a­tive con­se­quences it may have on the young foot­ballers in our re­gion. Those young foot­ballers from as far North as To­co and En­vi­rons and as far South East as Rio Claro that play this beau­ti­ful game who may not now be able to par­tic­i­pate in any lo­cal, re­gion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al FI­FA ap­proved com­pe­ti­tions.

"If these sanc­tions oc­cur it def­i­nite­ly shat­ters the dreams of every young EC­FU foot­baller striv­ing to rep­re­sent our re­gion and those who may go on to rep­re­sent our twin-is­land re­pub­lic or de­sirous of mak­ing a ca­reer from foot­ball."

In the first in­stance, the del­e­gates, some 30 of them to date out of a max­i­mum of 47 del­e­gates, were suc­cess­ful in hav­ing the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee which is head­ed by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, con­vened a meet­ing un­der Ar­ti­cle 29 of the TTFA con­sti­tu­tion with two items with sev­er­al sub­sec­tions on the agen­da.

The del­e­gates want to recog­nise the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee as the ex­ec­u­tive body of the TTFA from March 17 and ac­cord­ing to FI­FA Statutes ar­ti­cle 8 and the sec­ond item, is to have the le­gal chal­lenge against FI­FA by the Unit­ed TTFA team to be with­drawn forth­with. The pe­ti­tion has list­ed how the TTFA will be at a set­back if the le­gal mat­ter is not with­drawn.

Lennox Sir­juesingh, a for­mer FI­FA ref­er­ee and in­struc­tor and the pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of VF­FOTT, told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day: "VF­FOTT has been a mem­ber of the TTFA in good stand­ing since 2015, af­ter ad­vo­cat­ing for a change of the One­man­ism in gov­er­nance and its mem­bers worked on the new TTFA con­sti­tu­tion which was rat­i­fied on Ju­ly 12, 2015."

He added, "The or­gan­i­sa­tion has re­mained a mem­ber in good stand­ing and had both its del­e­gate and board mem­ber at­tend the last AGM held on No­vem­ber 24, 2019. Maybe the Look Loy-Unit­ed TTFA ex­pelled mem­bers from the TTFA. I know they have nev­er held a gen­er­al meet­ing of the mem­ber­ship since the AGM on No­vem­ber 24, 2019, not even to thank those who vot­ed for them."

Checks by Guardian Me­dia Sports through var­i­ous sources stat­ed that Beach Foot­ball, Fut­sal, the EC­FU, the South­ern FA and VF­FOTT, all par­tic­i­pat­ed with full mem­ber­ship rights in­clud­ing the rights to vote at the 2019 TTFA an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM ) elec­tion. Since then, there has been no ques­tion about their mem­ber­ship sta­tus nor has any meet­ing been called since to dis­cuss such is­sues.

The TTFA con­sti­tu­tion makes pro­vi­sions for 49 del­e­gates, how­ev­er, at the last AGM, the Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and the Coach­es As­so­ci­a­tion were deemed non-func­tion­al.

With re­gards to the T&T Women's Foot­ball (WolF) sup­port for the pe­ti­tion, Chris­tine Rose, the or­gan­i­sa­tion trea­sur­er told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day: "An emer­gency meet­ing was called by the pres­i­dent Su­san Joseph-War­rick on Thurs­day and the out­come of this meet­ing re­sult­ed in the en­tire ex­ec­u­tive, in­clu­sive of the pres­i­dent, vot­ing unan­i­mous­ly against the TTFA to be banned by FI­FA."

She said, "In our meet­ing, we fur­ther dis­cussed the im­pli­ca­tions of the im­passe be­tween Unit­ed TTFA and FI­FA. We be­lieve that the case should be with­drawn from the lo­cal court and moved to the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport. We be­lieve that Unit­ed TTFA team should meet or at­tend the EGM which has been called by the mem­ber­ship. So that they can lis­ten to the dif­fer­ent views of their mem­ber­ship as well as give their views be­hind the im­passe be­tween Unit­ed TTFA and FI­FA."

"In my hum­ble opin­ion, I am wor­ried that TTFA could be fac­ing sanc­tions/ban from FI­FA. Such a de­ci­sion can ad­verse­ly af­fect the foot­balling pop­u­la­tion of T&T. It would crush the dreams of the young as­pir­ing foot­ballers as they will not be able to rep­re­sent any na­tion­al team at the var­i­ous lev­els, as well as those as­pir­ing to be­come pro­fes­sion­al foot­ballers. Sports Tourism would al­so be af­fect­ed be­cause we would not be able to par­tic­i­pate in any in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball, whether it be friend­ly or com­pet­i­tive. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this can ul­ti­mate­ly lead young peo­ple to a life of crime."

Mean­while, among some of the clubs and del­e­gates that have signed the pe­ti­tions seen by Guardian Me­dia Sports are - La Horquat­ta Rangers, Cen­tral FC, Po­lice, San Juan Jabloteh, AC Port-of-Spain, W Con­nec­tion, Mor­vant Cale­do­nia FC, Club San­do, De­fence Force, Queen's Park Crick­et Club, the South­ern, East­ern and Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tions; EC­FU; WolF; the Fut­sal As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T; T&T Beach Soc­cer As­so­ci­a­tion and the VF­FOTT.

On Au­gust 26, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of FI­FA Fat­ma Samoura wrote Hadad, warn­ing that TTFA would face sanc­tions if it did not with­draw the mat­ter out of the T&T High Court by Sep­tem­ber 16, which is two days be­fore FI­FA holds its Con­gress.