"Non-com­pli­ant clubs in the T&TSL can vote" so said David John-Williams, pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion and Jame­son Rigues, vice pres­i­dent of the T&T Su­per League.

Their com­ment comes amidst cir­cu­lat­ing re­ports that non-com­pli­ant clubs can­not vote ahead of the TTSL Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing to re­move Kei­th Look Loy as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Board of the T&TFA.

Fif­teen clubs are mak­ing an at­tempt to have the TTSL con­vene an Ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing for the pur­pose of re­mov­ing its pres­i­dent from the TTFA board. To se­cure such a meet­ing the clubs must gain the sup­port of more than 50 per cent of its 22 mem­bers.

But af­ter se­cur­ing the sig­na­tures of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 clubs via a pe­ti­tion, Look Loy told Guardian Me­dia Sports the en­tire pe­ti­tion was fraud­u­lent as some of the clubs that signed were non-com­pli­ant and oth­ers were un­reg­is­tered.

Yes­ter­day Rigues, the TTSL vice pres­i­dent who pub­licly sided with the clubs' call to re­move its pres­i­dent for his in­abil­i­ty to rep­re­sent the in­ter­ests of the su­per league at the TTFA's Board lev­el, is re­mind­ing clubs, whether they are non-com­pli­ant or un­reg­is­tered, that they can vote.

Rigues made it clear the TTSL's con­sti­tu­tion does not state that. "In fact, clubs that are non-com­pli­ant are still bonafide mem­bers of the TTSL and can on­ly be pre­vent­ed from vot­ing if they are no longer mem­bers through ex­pul­sion. All clubs have shares in the com­pa­ny TTSL and can­not ex­er­cise their right to vote on­ly if they lose that mem­ber­ship," Rigues ex­plained.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that at Sat­ur­day's AGM of the TTSL at the Queen's Park Oval, Look Loy at­tempt­ed to move a mo­tion for non-com­pli­ant and un­reg­is­tered clubs to be mere ob­servers dur­ing any vot­ing process, but the mo­tion was not on the agen­da as an item. To date, on­ly three clubs, Siparia Spurs, Youth Stars from To­ba­go and Cen­tral 500 Spar­tans are non-com­pli­ant.

How­ev­er, the reg­is­tra­tion of clubs for this sea­son will de­pend on whether or not a pro­pos­al by the UE­FA/CON­CA­CAF team to the TTSL to have 12 teams, will be ad­hered to as rec­om­mend­ed. That mat­ter is cur­rent­ly be­ing dealt with by a tri­par­tite com­mit­tee com­pris­ing Ju­lia Bap­tiste (TT Pro League), Richard Piper (TTFA) and Look Loy (TTSL).

Yes­ter­day, Look Loy said he was not wor­ried about ef­forts by clubs to gain the Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing as they did have the num­bers to do so. "Be­tween clubs be­ing non-com­pli­ant, not reg­is­tered and those that have with­drawn their sig­na­ture, they just do not have the num­ber of teams to do so," Look Loy ex­plained.

Af­ter 15 sig­na­tures were scribed on a pe­ti­tion by the clubs last week, three of them, name­ly WASA, Erin FC and Club San­do have since re­scind­ed. And RSSR, which through Ruthven Charles, ap­peared to have sup­port­ed Look Loy, said yes­ter­day they are sit­ting on the fence.

San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants, on the oth­er hand, can be the dif­fer­ence in the clubs re­ceiv­ing the 50 per cent sup­port, but its rep­re­sen­ta­tive An­tho­ny Clarke said their views have al­ready been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the su­per league, as they will not do so through the me­dia.

John-Williams, who ad­mit­ted he did not want to get in­to the busi­ness of the TTSL, sought to shine some light on the sit­u­a­tion, say­ing, "All clubs of the TTSL and the Pro League are mem­bers of the TTFA. Non-com­pli­ant clubs can­not take part in any com­pe­ti­tion held un­der the aus­pices of the TTFA and al­so can­not vote.

How­ev­er, the TTSL and Pro League are not mem­bers of the TTFA and there­fore can­not vote. They are to­tal­ly sep­a­rate en­ti­ties/com­pa­nies that run a com­pe­ti­tion that is sanc­tioned by the TTFA."

He point­ed out that, "As a com­pa­ny, in which shares are bought and teams are mem­bers, clubs have the rights to vote un­less the con­sti­tu­tion states oth­er­wise. For clubs to not be able to vote, they must lose their mem­ber­ship through ex­pul­sion etc."

He told Guardian Me­dia he was shocked a few months ago when TTSL clubs were de­barred from vot­ing on the com­pli­ance is­sue be­cause they were non-com­pli­ant, say­ing that was il­le­gal.