Shel­don Phillips, for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), said yes­ter­day that pol­i­tics led to him be­ing fired by the as­so­ci­a­tion.

A re­lease is­sued by the TTFA yes­ter­day stat­ed the TTFA pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee fired Phillips be­cause he failed to ad­here to di­rec­tives re­gard­ing the op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ties of the As­so­ci­a­tion.

It al­so said the de­ci­sion was tak­en by Tim Kee fol­low­ing the is­su­ing of a let­ter to Phillips re­quest­ing his res­ig­na­tion on Mon­day evening.

Phillips re­fused the re­quest fol­low­ing which his ser­vices were ter­mi­nat­ed by Tim Kee.

His sack­ing came a mere day af­ter a news­pa­per re­port stat­ed that Tim Kee had re­ceived sup­port from the ex­ec­u­tives of the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion.

Phillips' dis­missal has un­earthed what ap­pears to be a di­vi­sion with­in the walls of the TTFA.

Tim Kee has con­firmed that he will be seek­ing a re-elec­tion when the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) and elec­tion of of­fi­cers are held on No­vem­ber 29.

TTFA of­fi­cials will be able to tell who filed their nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments to con­test the elec­tions to­day as the dead­line was mid­night last night.

It is un­der­stood that W Con­nec­tion main man John Williams and for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al ref­er­ee Ramesh Ramd­han are among those seek­ing the top post.

Yes­ter­day, Phillips, the son of for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er and the fed­er­a­tion's tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor Lin­coln Phillips, did not want to com­ment on whether there was a rift with­in the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion but said it was to­tal­ly un­for­tu­nate that he was fired.

He said he was grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve T&T and could on­ly hope that he has played a role in the ob­vi­ous progress in lo­cal foot­ball from 2012 to now.

Phillips, who ad­mit­ted to be­ing the one in­stru­men­tal in the hir­ing of So­ca War­riors coach Stephen Hart and women's coach Randy Wal­drum al­so ex­plained that his sack­ing may have come be­cause it was an elec­tion year.

Asked if his dis­missal could lead to a set back in the progress of TT foot­ball on­ly weeks be­fore the start of World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion, Phillips said " I don't think my sit­u­a­tion will af­fect what's go­ing on at the TTFA. I think every­one has a job to do and that is im­por­tant."

His ex­it al­so means that the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion will now be in a search of a re­place­ment.

Yes­ter­day's re­lease al­so con­firmed that the TTFA has com­menced a search for a new gen­er­al sec­re­tary and re­mains com­mit­ted to ex­plor­ing and eval­u­at­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ties that will put the TTFA on a tra­jec­to­ry for growth and con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment.

A team of mem­bers is ex­pect­ed to be se­lect­ed soon to look for spon­sor­ship for lo­cal foot­ball, and there may like­ly to be res­ig­na­tions to fol­low Phillips' fir­ing.

Lennox Wat­son, one of the as­so­ci­a­tion's vice pres­i­dents, ex­pressed sur­prise at Phillips' dis­missal, say­ing that he did not think that Tim Kee had the au­thor­i­ty or pow­er to fire the gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

Oth­er vice pres­i­dents of the TTFA are Rudolph Thomas, and Kr­ish­na Kuars­ingh.

WAL­TER AL­IBEY