The Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) now holds the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of con­firm­ing whether sev­en clubs, sus­pend­ed by the T&T Su­per League for be­ing non-com­pli­ant, are re­al­ly sus­pend­ed.

The Su­per League teams were sus­pend­ed back in 2018, but last month (Au­gust 27) were giv­en ap­peared to have been spared via a let­ter by the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee's act­ing gen­er­al sec­re­tary Amiel Mo­hammed, that his as­so­ci­a­tion has no doc­u­men­ta­tion to show that they were sus­pend­ed.

The sus­pen­sions were done un­der the then David John-Williams-led TTFA, but since the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion has changed lead­er­ship twice, from John-Williams to the William Wal­lace-led Unit­ed TTFA ad­min­is­tra­tion, to the now Robert Hadad-led Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee/TTFA, where the doc­u­ments ap­pear to be non-ex­is­tent.

From 2018 to now, the clubs- Cen­tral 500, De­fence Force, Harlem Strik­ers, Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre, To­ba­go Phoenix, WASA and the Youth Stars were not able to take part in any foot­ball-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties of the TTSL, in­clud­ing hav­ing vot­ing rights.

Last year as the Su­per League vot­ed in Clay­ton Mor­ris as the new pres­i­dent in place of Jame­son Rigues, the League's first vice pres­i­dent who took over the lead­er­ship fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Kei­th Look Loy in Oc­to­ber 2020.

Mo­hammed in his let­ter to TTSL sec­re­tary Pe­ter Thomas, said: "The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion ac­knowl­edges re­ceipt of your let­ter dat­ed 24th Au­gust 2021 and writes to in­form you that the TTFA has no doc­u­men­ta­tion in­di­cat­ing the sus­pen­sion of the TTSL clubs from the TTFA.

"Ad­di­tion­al­ly, since the League's in­cep­tion in 2017, no TTSL club has ever been sus­pend­ed by the TTFA. Not­ing the above, if you do not have any com­mu­ni­ca­tion that in­di­cates that a club was sus­pend­ed by the TTFA, we kind­ly ask that the TTSL for­ward those cor­re­spon­dences that were sent from the TTFA, in­form­ing the TTSL of the sus­pend­ed clubs in the past."

Con­tact­ed, Thomas re­ferred to a no­tice of a re­con­vened Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing of the TTFA on April 21, 2018, at which a de­ci­sion was tak­en by the AGM to di­rect the Board of the TTFA to sus­pend non-com­pli­ant mem­bers pro­vi­sion­al­ly and to rec­om­mend their dis­missal.

He said this doc­u­ment was re­sent to the TTFA on ei­ther Sun­day or Mon­day (Sep­tem­ber 5 or 6).

The TTFA sec­re­tary is set to de­liv­er its rul­ing by the end of this week.

Guardian Me­dia re­ceived a copy of the min­utes of the AGM which showed that not on­ly were the sev­en TTSL clubs sus­pend­ed, but they were among 21 or­gan­i­sa­tions to have been sus­pend­ed, name­ly - Bar­rack­pore Unit­ed, Cunu­pia FC, Coach­es As­so­ci­a­tion, East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU), Ed­in­burgh 500, Fut­sal T&T, Guaya Unit­ed, Harlem Strik­ers, Matu­ra Re-Unit­ed, Pe­tit Val­ley Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed, Po­lice FC, Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Pri­ma­ry Schools League, 1976 To­ba­go Phoenix, Re­al Mara­cas, Sad­dle Hill, Siparia Spurs, TTWOLF, UTT, WASA FC and the Youth Stars of To­ba­go.

Some of the rea­sons giv­en for be­ing non-com­pli­ant in­cludes hav­ing no con­sti­tu­tion, no bye laws and au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments, among oth­ers. Fol­low­ing the TTSL's AGM and Elec­tions last year, it was stat­ed that De­fence Force was the on­ly one of the sev­en sus­pend­ed clubs to have ful­filled all the re­quire­ments to be com­pli­ant to date.

The TTSL pre­pares for an­oth­er AGM and elec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 19 as a bat­tle rages be­tween Ke­iron Ed­wards, the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (EFA) pres­i­dent and Ryan Ot­t­ley, the man­ag­er of the De­fence Force TTSL foot­ball team, for the lead­er­ship of the TTSL.

The two are the on­ly can­di­dates af­ter cur­rent pres­i­dent Clay­ton Mor­ris de­cid­ed not to seek re-elec­tion.