WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Sports Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TFA) pres­i­dent Ever­ton Al­fred is stay­ing clear of the com­ing elec­tions of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion to be held ten­ta­tive­ly in April un­til foot­ball on the is­land is the way it is sup­posed to be.

His board of mem­bers, com­pris­ing him­self, Desmond Al­fred- 1st Vice Pres­i­dent, Carel Per­cy- 2nd VP, and Ronald Duke, the 3rd VP will meet with sev­er­al items on the agen­da to be dis­cussed, in­clud­ing the elec­tions and a dis­cus­sion on the re­cent amend­ments to the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion Con­sti­tu­tion which were all ac­cept­ed at the Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing (EGM) on Jan­u­ary 28.

Al­fred as­sured that he is one per­son on the is­land who is any­thing but in­ter­est­ed in the elec­tion of a new ex­ec­u­tive for the T&TFA, how­ev­er, he said he is more than will­ing to work with any­one who is elect­ed.

“I am not in­ter­est­ed in hav­ing any slate or be­ing on any slate. I ex­pect that the peo­ple seek­ing elec­tion will vis­it us and make their pre­sen­ta­tions. As far as I am con­cerned, I am will­ing to work with any­body once the in­ter­est of To­ba­go foot­ball is be­ing tak­en care of,” Al­fred ex­plained.

“For me, I have to make sure that my house is clean first be­fore I can go out­side. On the is­land here, I know that we have to move To­ba­go foot­ball for­ward. At present, it is not where it ought to be,” Al­fred said.

The long­stand­ing To­ba­go foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor is al­ready tack­ling the reg­u­lar is­sues of ref­er­ee-bash­ing and ridicule in the game, by putting to­geth­er a fo­rum that will treat the is­sues be­tween play­ers and ref­er­ees can be dealt with.

He de­scribed it as a crit­i­cal is­sue in the sport that has to be dealt with. An­oth­er con­cern for him is the con­struc­tion of a qual­i­ty To­ba­go foot­ball team for both boys/men and women/girls that will help serve the in­ter­ests of T&T foot­ball.

In ad­di­tion, the To­ba­go FA will al­so fo­cus on clubs be­ing com­pli­ant, as well as the new Safe­guard­ing poli­cies. So far, the com­ing T&TFA elec­tions, the fi­nal man­date giv­en to the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee back in 2020, has gen­er­at­ed huge in­ter­est with a few can­di­dates mak­ing clear their in­ten­tions.

Al­ready Ke­iron Ed­wards, the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (EFA) pres­i­dent has con­firmed his in­ter­est in be­ing the new TTFA pres­i­dent, as well as busi­ness­man Den­nis Lat­iff, the South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion boss, who told Guardian Me­dia Sports that he is now in the process of putting to­geth­er his slate.

Al­so ex­pect­ed to vie for the lead­er­ship of foot­ball in T&T is Sel­by Browne, the Vet­er­ans Foot­ball Foun­da­tion of T&T pres­i­dent, and Bri­an Jor­dan, the pro­mot­er and founder of the NL­CL Com­mu­ni­ty Youth Cup. Col­in Wharfe, the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League is al­so ru­moured to be a pos­si­ble con­tender, but he told Guardian Me­dia last week that he is con­sumed by the de­mands of the T&T PFL.