The mem­ber­ship of the T&T Su­per League (TTSL) will de­cide whether the con­tin­u­a­tion of last Sun­day's AGM and Elec­tion of Of­fi­cers will go on vir­tu­al­ly as planned to­day.  

In­ter­im pres­i­dent Jame­son Rigues, who is set to be con­test­ed by for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er and cap­tain Clay­ton Mor­ris for the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent, has said he will not be at­tend­ing the elec­tion be­cause of the il­le­gal­i­ty of it, cit­ing a clear vi­o­la­tion of the TTSL con­sti­tu­tion, its bye-laws and elec­tion code to have the elec­tion held with­out a se­cret-bal­lot process.

Sec­ond vice pres­i­dent Ed­di­son Dean said a let­ter has been put to the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship for the elec­tions to take place vir­tu­al­ly. He not­ed, the pro­pos­al was made by Club San­do and sec­ond­ed by Bethel, and once the mem­ber­ship votes for it, then there will be an elec­tion.

"If the mem­ber­ship does not vote for it then there will be no elec­tions. On­ly the mem­ber­ship will de­cide," Dean said on Sat­ur­day.

Four out of five mem­bers of the board of di­rec­tors of the TTSL - Dean, Col­in Mur­ray, An­der­son Veronique, and Ter­ry Joseph - have agreed to al­low the mem­ber­ship to de­cide on the vot­ing process, as Dean as­sured there is a pro­vi­sion in the bye-laws for vir­tu­al elec­tion to take place.

Dean has as­sured al­so that con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­pert Os­mond Down­er has been in­vit­ed to be an ob­serv­er, along with Nor­ris Fer­gu­son, an ex-foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor, with Bor­ris Punch as the man con­duct­ing the elec­tions, say­ing any­one who has a prob­lem with the con­sti­tu­tion can ask Down­er.

It is un­sure if the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee will play any part in the elec­tion, though the com­mit­tee's chair­man Robert Hadad said last week. they will at­tempt to pro­vide as­sis­tance in ob­serv­ing and me­di­a­tion.  

Last Sun­day, the AGM and elec­tion were called off due to dis­rup­tion and on Tues­day the board, mi­nus Rigues, took a de­ci­sion to con­tin­ue it to­day.  

Ac­cord­ing to Dean: "We are guid­ed by our bye-laws and our bye-laws say what we're do­ing is cor­rect. The Su­per League board called the AGM. To­mor­row (Sun­day), there is a let­ter in­side and I am re­peat­ing my­self, but if you read the bye-laws, it will guide you. There is a let­ter in­side to amend the con­sti­tu­tion so we can have the elec­tions done vir­tu­al­ly.

"Once the mem­bers vote in favour of that, elec­tions will hap­pen. If the mem­bers say they're not in favour, there will be no elec­tions, and on­ly the mem­ber­ship can de­cide. Nei­ther the pres­i­dent, the vice pres­i­dent, the sec­re­tary, no­body but the vot­ing mem­bers, and there are 14 of them."

Rigues held an Emer­gency Gen­er­al Meet­ing of the mem­ber­ship yes­ter­day at which he at­tempt­ed to con­vince them to sup­port a face-to-face elec­tion on De­cem­ber 20 at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel in St Ann's.

The TTSL pres­i­dent said: "The meet­ing went ahead, there was a quo­rum and we made sev­er­al de­ci­sions con­cern­ing the no­tice of sus­pen­sion that went out to sev­en clubs, and al­so the con­duct of the League sec­re­tary, and the elec­tion of a pres­i­dent, and al­so the del­e­gates that have to be cho­sen for the TTFA."

Rigues is against hav­ing dis­cus­sions for the sus­pend­ed clubs af­ter the elec­tion, be­liev­ing that the sus­pend­ed clubs should be re-in­stat­ed and giv­en vot­ing rights im­me­di­ate­ly to vote at the elec­tions.

Dean told Guardian Me­dia Sports that dis­cus­sion on the sus­pend­ed clubs was al­ways set to take place af­ter the elec­tion of of­fi­cers.

Dis­ap­point­ed by the turn of events, Rigues has promised to stay away from the elec­tions to­day, as he does not want to con­done the vi­o­la­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion.  

"As the le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the TTSL, if I at­tend that meet­ing, that would mean that I will be con­don­ing the break­ing and the ig­nor­ing of the TTSL Statutes and the elec­toral code. I stand firm to the view that we should have that par­tic­u­lar agen­da item host­ed face-to-face, which is the right thing to do."

Rigues not­ed that last week's board meet­ing to de­cide on the con­tin­u­a­tion of the AGM/Elec­tions in its en­tire­ty was not called by the process­es of the TTSL but was rather called by cer­tain mem­bers who have ul­te­ri­or mo­tives.

The su­per boss al­so lashed out at sec­re­tary Pe­ter Thomas for act­ing out­side of his scope of work, with­out con­sul­ta­tion with his su­per­vi­sor which is the pres­i­dent.

EGM LET­TER:

Rigues in, an of­fi­cial re­lease yes­ter­day, stat­ed: "The Emer­gency Gen­er­al Meet­ing of the TTSL sum­moned by the in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the TTSL was con­vened this morn­ing at 10 am. Eleven (11) of the 21 TTSL mem­ber clubs at­tend­ed which con­sti­tut­ed a quo­rum. The in­ter­im pres­i­dent called the meet­ing to or­der and the mem­ber­ship elect­ed a sec­re­tary for the meet­ing.

The three Agen­da Items: Item 1) the mem­ber­ship sta­tus of all TTSL clubs. Item 2) the re­moval and re­place­ment of the Sec­re­tary. Item 3) dis­cus­sion on host­ing the elec­tion of pres­i­dent as per the dic­tates of the TTSL Statutes. Af­ter wide-rang­ing con­tri­bu­tions and dis­cus­sions on each Agen­da Item, mo­tions were moved and sec­ond­ed, fol­lowed by a vote.

The meet­ing unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed on each of the fol­low­ing mo­tions:

1) The re­moval of any sus­pen­sion no­tices and the TTSL to recog­nise the full rights of the sev­en mem­bers that were is­sued sus­pen­sion no­tices by the League Sec­re­tary.

2) The im­me­di­ate re­moval and re­place­ment of Mr Pe­ter Thomas as League sec­re­tary of the TTSL

3) The elec­tion of pres­i­dent and the se­lec­tion of TTSL del­e­gates to the TTFA to be held on De­cem­ber 20, 2020, at a venue un­der con­di­tions ap­proved by the Min­istry of Health’s COVID-19 guide­lines. The meet­ing al­so took de­ci­sions with re­spect to the ac­tions of the board and the sec­re­tary and di­rect­ed the in­ter­im pres­i­dent to for­ward two let­ters to the board mem­bers and to the sec­re­tary.

The de­ci­sions of the meet­ing were: a) In keep­ing with Ar­ti­cle 17.3 of the By-Laws, which states; “On­ly the pres­i­dent may pro­pose the ap­point­ment or dis­missal of the League sec­re­tary.”

Com­mu­ni­cate to the board in writ­ing and pro­pose the re­moval and re­place­ment of Pe­ter Thomas from the po­si­tion of League sec­re­tary with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

b) Give no­tice to the League sec­re­tary, Mr Pe­ter Thomas that he shall not is­sue any cor­re­spon­dence in the name of the TTSL with­out the ap­proval of the in­ter­im pres­i­dent. Ar­ti­cle 18.4, sub­sec­tion (a) of the TTSL By-Laws states, “He shall be re­spon­si­ble for im­ple­ment­ing de­ci­sions passed by the gen­er­al meet­ing and board of man­age­ment in com­pli­ance with the pres­i­dent’s di­rec­tives.”