An­drew Gioan­net­ti

Deputy di­rec­tor at the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Ruth Marchan, her hus­band Ed­ward Marchan and for­mer T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol (TTB­BC) board mem­ber Shama Stroude were all re­cip­i­ents of cheques from the Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion–a com­pa­ny co-owned by TTB­BC spe­cial ad­vis­er Boxu Potts, which has ben­e­fit­ed from spon­sor­ship from the Sport Min­istry.Stroude has ad­mit­ted to the T&T Guardian that she made an er­ror in ac­cept­ing the cheque.

As to why Stroude–who was al­so a mem­ber of the tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee at the TTB­BC–was the re­cip­i­ent of a $7,700 cheque from Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion in May 2011, this is what she had to say when T&T Guardian con­tact­ed her: "This was from Boxu? It is from Boxu, you are say­ing? What was the cheque for? Was it for a box­ing card or some­thing?"

Asked why pay­ment for a box­ing card would be made out in her name, giv­en that she was a board mem­ber of the TTB­BC, Stroude replied: "The on­ly thing I could say about that is, if it re­lat­ed to a pro/am­a­teur card, I nor­mal­ly, be­ing a ref­er­ee judge, they nor­mal­ly give me the mon­ey to pay the am­a­teur ref­er­ee judges."If it is made out to me on my name, I do not know if Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion had a card at that time," she said.

As to whether it was the prop­er pro­ce­dure for cheques to be made out to board mem­bers to pay ref­er­ees, Stroude, who is al­so a ref­er­ee/judge with the T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­BA,) said: "It should not have been made out on my name. I know what you mean. I was a board mem­ber."Nor­mal­ly it is giv­en in cash and I will pay the ref­er­ees and judges.

"I do not know about any cheque mak­ing out to me. They can­not make out any cheque to me, be­cause I was a board mem­ber."Asked why a cheque was made out from the Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion di­rect­ly to her, Stroude said: "Every­body know Mr Potts and they know what he is full of."Imag­ine, that is my name. Why would he do this? The on­ly thing is, maybe it was for the ref­er­ee/judges for the TTA­BA."

Asked why the cheque was not made out to the TTA­BA, Stroude said: "There were al­so some trust is­sues with of­fi­cials from the TTA­BA."When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed pres­i­dent of the TTA­BA, Ce­cil Forde, to in­quire if he was aware of this trans­ac­tion, he said: "That is a per­son­al mat­ter. It has ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with the TTA­BA.

"If that cheque was made di­rect­ly to her, we (TTA­BA) were not in­volved in that. When we had fights, the box­ing board would have to au­tho­rise all pay­ments. I do not know about any cheque be­ing made out to any­one."Re­peat­ed calls by the T&T Guardian to deputy di­rec­tor Marchan for her to ex­plain pay­ments made to her hus­band and her­self were un­suc­cess­ful.

When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Marchan on her di­rect line at the min­istry yes­ter­day, af­ter iden­ti­fy­ing her­self she on­ly said: "Please call through the PBX," be­fore hang­ing up the phone.How­ev­er, all at­tempts to con­tact her af­ter­wards as she re­quest­ed were un­suc­cess­ful.T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that on June 2, 2011, a cheque of $3,500 was made out to Marchan by the Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion. The cheque was cashed on June 27.

Marchan's hus­band, who was em­ployed as a head coach at Yan's Sport­ing Acad­e­my, which is al­so owned by Potts, re­ceived the fol­low­ing pay­ments from Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion:

2011

April 4–$5,000

April 28–$5,000

May 1–$2,000

May 27–$5,000

Ju­ly 1–$8,500

Ju­ly 27-$30,000

Ac­cord­ing to the acad­e­my's fi­nan­cial doc­u­ments, a head coach re­ceives a month­ly salary of $5,000. The acad­e­my was set up un­der the Uni­fied Pro­mot­er's Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion in 2011 at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Ari­ma.Marchan could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day as tele­phone calls went unan­swered.

When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Potts yes­ter­day, he said he was out of the coun­try and not pre­pared to an­swer any ques­tions."I have noth­ing to say," he said. "I am not re­spond­ing to any­thing. Keep on print­ing my name. You are do­ing a good job, keep it up."He then hung up.Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts could not be con­tact­ed as tele­phone calls went di­rect­ly to his voice mail.