A few weeks ago, there was an in­ter­view in the Sun­day Guardian where a mem­ber of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) gen­er­al coun­cil and for­mer na­tion­al coach was speak­ing about the state of foot­ball in T&T; more specif­i­cal­ly, with ref­er­ence to the per­for­mance of the pres­i­dent of the TTFA David John-Williams, and he was quick to note that he was a friend of his and one of his cam­paign man­agers for the 2015 TTFA elec­tions. I sup­pose he was try­ing to con­vince us that the in­ter­view ought to be im­par­tial.

To­day, I wish to tell you that Kei­th Look Loy is not my friend and I have not, and will not cam­paign for him if he was go­ing up for a "tid­dly­winks" post. I first en­coun­tered Look Loy when he was play­ing cen­tre back for St Mary’s Col­lege. I was a speedy left winger for Fa­ti­ma Col­lege. Look Loy was the skip­per of his team but was hard as nails and looked like a beast - just how a cen­tre back should be.

I next en­coun­tered him when he was coach­ing Mal­ick and I was coach­ing Fa­ti­ma. Our paths crossed again when he was the coach of Joe Pub­lic and I was the coach of Carib. We have nev­er been on the same side, there­fore, no one can ac­cuse me of be­ing sup­port­ive of him and against some­one else in his favour.

So much so that when the 2015 TTFA elec­tions rolled around, no one from any As­so­ci­a­tion or League called me to ask if I was in­ter­est­ed in any po­si­tion. I kept my dis­tance un­til Ray­mond Tim Kee, who I was to op­pose in 2013 for the TTFA pres­i­den­cy (I should write a book about that), called me and asked if I would run for vice pres­i­dent and af­ter long de­lib­er­a­tions I ac­cept­ed. I am not quite a slate per­son. I hon­est­ly be­lieve that if a per­son is good enough for the post, he should be in­stalled so I was a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed when I saw the late John Sab­ga on an­oth­er slate run­ning for vice pres­i­dent and back­ing an op­pos­ing can­di­date. As friends, we spoke about it and I even said to him that if we win, we will bring you on board in some ca­pac­i­ty as you have so much to con­tribute.

Now, Look Loy was not sup­port­ing our slate but that’s his de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right. Un­for­tu­nate­ly (or for­tu­nate­ly), I was out of the coun­try when the elec­tions were called and ap­par­ent­ly when the vot­ing came around, I fin­ished sec­ond to Ew­ing Davis. Then, there were two more rounds of vot­ing and I came sec­ond on each oc­ca­sion to John-Williams’ can­di­dates and so both John and my­self were boot­ed out. What a bless­ing in dis­guise. Sad­ly, John has since passed away and I cer­tain­ly would not have last­ed in that regime.

The rea­son for this back­ground is to show the dif­fer­ent paths of my des­tiny and Look Loy’s. How­ev­er, as fate would have it, the chair­man of the Queen’s Park Crick­et Club (QPCC) foot­ball sec­tion asked me if I would stand for elec­tion as a board mem­ber of the T&T Su­per League (TTSL). He told me Look Loy was run­ning for pres­i­dent which did not both­er me be­cause I want­ed to help foot­ball and the League. Sub­se­quent­ly, I found out I was on Look Loy’s slate; some­thing I did not even know but more than that, there was an ob­vi­ous pow­er strug­gle. Even­tu­al­ly, Look Loy won but the trou­ble on­ly then be­gan.

His op­po­nents at­tacked at every op­por­tu­ni­ty and Look Loy’s per­son­al­i­ty is one to nev­er back down. When I read some of what his op­po­nents wrote in try­ing to re­move him as TTSL pres­i­dent, I gen­uine­ly won­der whether these per­sons love foot­ball and wish to see it progress. I am not for one mo­ment say­ing Look Loy is a ''Saint" but the rea­son to re­move him is be­cause he begs for trans­paren­cy with the TTFA and keeps ask­ing the rel­e­vant ques­tions. Peo­ple tell me he has a hid­den agen­da. So what?

Wouldn’t he have a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to fight for any po­si­tion he de­sires and can be re­ject­ed or sup­port­ed?

The TTSL has no spon­sors but not for lack of try­ing. Spon­sor­ship, es­pe­cial­ly in T&T foot­ball nowa­days, is dif­fi­cult to ob­tain. Spon­sors don’t want to be as­so­ci­at­ed with con­fu­sion and bac­cha­nal so when Look Loy’s op­po­nents threat­en le­gal ac­tion etc, which spon­sor in their right mind will come on board?

The TTSL has its books in or­der and fi­nan­cials up to date; a well-run League that fin­ished on time and with no prob­lems 2018 with of­fi­cials and match com­mis­sion­ers. It is even ru­moured that it is the on­ly League to pay match of­fi­cials in ad­vance, some­thing I have nev­er heard be­fore in T&T. To me, what should be of para­mount im­por­tance to those Su­per League clubs is how well the League is be­ing run and how it can be im­proved.

Look Loy and a few oth­ers are rep­re­sent­ing the in­ter­est of the en­tire foot­balling pub­lic and clubs of T&T by de­mand­ing the TTFA play fair, show trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and good gov­er­nance. If those TTSL clubs were re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in foot­ball, they would ask the same ques­tions rather than seem­ing­ly hav­ing a per­son­al agen­da.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in this col­umn are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.