WALTER ALIBEY
President of the T&T Football Association Raymond Tim Kee is hoping for another term to complete the work he has started since taking office back in 2012.He has been successful in achieving major changes to the constitution and bringing it in line of the world governing body for football-FIFA.
Yesterday he was praised by Jimmy Henry- the new secretary of administration at the Central Football Association (CFA) for constitutional changes that allowed others to be able to contest the elections for the first time and in fair manner.
According to Henry "We must praise president Raymond Tim Kee for the work he has done in ensuring that there were amendments to the constitution, both the TTFA and the regional associations, which allowed others to contest elections and ring in a new administration" Henry said.
He added "Had it not been for Tim Kee we still would have been in a situation where no one would have known when the elections are and where it would have been."The incumbent faces a mountainous challenge to regain his seat with mounting calls for him to be replaced.
These challenges are coming from David John-Williams the W Connection president, Selby Browne-the president of the Veteran Football Foundation (VFF), ex football referee Ramesh Ramdhan and Clynt Taylor- the first vice president of the T&T Football Referees Association.
Tim Kee is however, riding a wave of his successes to date, particularly the performances of the T&T 'Soca Warriors' team which is in the midst of a World Cup qualifying campaign. The 'Soca Warriors' first pulled off a major up set in their opening match in Guatemala by beating them 2-1.
And in the team's second qualifier against the United States the team drew 0-0 in a match that football pundits have said T&T should have won. The performances of the team have been representative of the product that Tim Kee created and spoke about in his plan for football.He said special emphasis must be placed on the key stakeholders- the football, the footballers, the administration and marketing of the game, if this product is to be achieved.
Tim Kee has already embarked on a massive marketing and promotion programme which has seen the construction of a new football association website that is making all information about the game, the matches, the players, upcoming football courses, football news, ticket sales, football apparel, promotional football events and sporting archives. He boasts now of the country's senior men and women's team being among the top 50 in the world according to the FIFA rankings, saying it is the first time we have achieve this.
The country's junior teams have also been excelling in their respective fields such as the T&T Under-20 women qualifying for the final Concacaf Round of the 2016 Olympic Qualifiers and the Under-17 women placing third in the CFU World Cup qualifiers.
Meanwhile, beach football and futsal have also made strides under Tim Kee's reign as the beach footballers defeated Concacaf giants Mexico and just missed out on qualifying for the Beach Soccer World Cup. All these have been achieved with the incumbent inheriting a football association that had a debt of over $38 million and numerous creditors.
Tim Kee said in an earlier press briefing that the image of the TTFA was one that corporate T&T wanted to stay far away from.
Tim Kee explained that because of this he wanted to clear some of their debt and he immediately decided to wipe clean the huge bill that was owed to the 2006 footballers that participated at the Germany World Cup that year.He also moved to ensure good governance that comprised proper accountability, fairness, transparency and integrity be the guiding practices within the embattled football association.
Tim Kee pointed out that one of his priorities during his term was to ensure fairness in the election process by taking steps to re-aligning the association's constitution to suit that of the FIFA. And from this process all regional associations were ordered to make similar and the appropriate amendments also.
He has promised the formation of an independent auditing commission which will work alongside an already functioning electoral committee- that was formed to oversee the amendments to the constitution.
He is also promising that should he be re-elected as the TTFA president, he will construct a new home for football at lands already allocated in Union Marabella.
This home will include an office with dressing rooms, football fields that will be used by a national football academy.He promised that his association will not be totally dependent on government for everything and has already began the sale of football apparel and other paraphernalia. He also intends to woo corporate T&T to buy into the new association's ideas.