The de­ci­sion of the T&T Su­per League (TTSL) to throw fi­nan­cial sup­port be­hind the for­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), four ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, in their ef­forts to fight the world gov­ern­ing body for foot­ball, FI­FA, through the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) in Switzer­land, for re­mov­ing them from of­fice on March 17, is be­ing chal­lenged.

On Thurs­day, Kei­th Look Loy, pres­i­dent of the TTSL, who is al­so the for­mer chair­man of the TTFA tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee, said the ma­jor­i­ty of clubs in the su­per league have agreed to give US$2,000 (es­ti­mat­ed TT$12,000) as a do­na­tion to help cov­er the le­gal fees of the TTFA, which stands at an es­ti­mat­ed TT$300,000 to $500,000.

The for­mer TTFA of­fi­cers have so far raised US$1,905 through its https:/www.go­fundme.com/f/TTFA-Fights-FI­FA-In­ter­ven­tion ac­count.

The for­mer TTFA ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers who will be rep­re­sent­ed by At­tor­neys Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew GW Gayle launched a ‘go fund me’ ini­tia­tive on March 30, which called on mem­bers of the pub­lic to give gen­er­ous­ly to cov­er the cost of their le­gal chal­lenge.

The for­mer ex­ec­u­tives of pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and vice pres­i­dents Clynt Tay­lor, Su­san War­rick-Joseph and Joseph 'Sam' Phillip are try­ing to gar­ner fi­nan­cial sup­port, af­ter FI­FA ap­point­ed a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to man­age the af­fairs of lo­cal foot­ball on March 27.

How­ev­er, some clubs have said they were un­fair­ly left out of the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process as they were nev­er con­sult­ed.

Jame­son Rigues, TTSL’s first vice pres­i­dent as well as Guaya Unit­ed own­er Randy Ha­gley, Derek Ed­wards of Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed and Po­lice have said they on­ly learned that such a de­ci­sion was made via the me­dia.

Rigues al­so ex­plained that sev­er­al clubs that were sus­pend­ed from not com­pet­ing in the league’s last two com­pe­ti­tions have al­so called him seek­ing an­swers. The 2019 sea­son was con­test­ed by 13 clubs.

“As a board mem­ber, I have re­ceived no let­ter of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, no email or What­sApp mes­sage seek­ing sup­port for the TTFA. In fact, I be­lieve that by Look Loy is be­ing heav­i­ly in­volved in the then TTFA as a for­mer board mem­ber and tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee chair­man, I see it as a di­rect con­flict of in­ter­est as he lob­bies for some­thing that would di­rect­ly im­pact him,” Rigues ex­plained.

He said, “Clubs such as Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre, Harlem Strik­ers, De­fence Force, 1976 Phoenix among oth­ers, should be giv­en re­spect and ho­n­our as share­hold­ers, al­though be­ing sus­pend­ed. The clubs be­lieve they should have been part of a de­ci­sion that would im­pact on the monies that they are in­vest­ed. Where is the fi­nan­cial state­ment of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, and how much do we have in our ac­counts, and can we af­ford to spend that kind of mon­ey on for­mer TTFA mem­bers. I think this is very un­fair.”

Asked by Guardian Me­dia Sports if as First vice pres­i­dent of Su­per League if he was part of the League's de­ci­sion to give TTFA sup­port to chal­lenge FI­FA de­ci­sion to send a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee to fix T&T foot­ball? Riques said: "I learned of the league's de­ci­sion via a news­pa­pers ar­ti­cle on March 24 and I learned of the de­ci­sion to do­nate US$2000 to Unit­ed TTFA to chal­lenge FI­FA in CAS via a TV Sports re­port."

Ques­tioned fur­ther as to if the Pres­i­dent's ac­tions are a con­flict of in­ter­est Riques replied, "I find the TTSL Pres­i­dent, Kei­th Look Loy is op­er­at­ing like he has some­thing to hide. Those ac­tions call in­to ques­tion an abuse of pow­er, be­cause there is no trans­paren­cy in the man­ner that those de­ci­sions were made, and here you are mak­ing an­nounce­ments in the me­dia about TTSL sup­port. Who re­al­ly knows how many clubs were For or Against these de­ci­sions? Where is the ev­i­dence? Where is the trans­paren­cy? He wouldn't run it by me be­cause he knows that I will ask the right ques­tions. I think that the method uti­lized, with­out trans­paren­cy was to ma­nip­u­late the clubs."

TTSL’s mem­ber­ship of some 22 clubs has whit­tled down to 13 present­ly, due to is­sues of non-com­pli­ance, in­abil­i­ty to pay reg­is­tra­tion fees, club drop-outs and a clause which leads to au­to­mat­ic sus­pen­sion if clubs miss con­sec­u­tive com­pe­ti­tions in the League.

Rigues called for the names of the clubs that agreed to sup­port the TTFA, to be put out to the pub­lic for all to see.

Guardian Me­dia Sports sent three ques­tions via What­sApp to Su­per League pres­i­dent Look Loy re­gard­ing the ques­tions and com­ments made by Rigues and some club of­fi­cials, how­ev­er, he read the mes­sage but up to press time he did not re­ply.

Mean­while, Col­in Mur­ray, a mem­ber of TTSL’s board of di­rec­tors said he knows for sure that let­ters of the re­quest were sent out to the mem­ber­ship via email and What­sApp, and he knows that about eight or nine clubs re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly.

When con­tact­ed two of the clubs that heed­ed the call of the TTFA re­quest were Erin FC and Prison FC. Pris­ons man­ag­er Fer­di­nand Bib­by said, his club’s de­ci­sion to sup­port the for­mer TTFA was to show the oth­er clubs that the mem­ber­ship will be ready to sup­port clubs that fall on hard times.