T&T Pro League and Su­per League clubs are now con­sid­er­ing whether the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee, in­stalled by the sport's world gov­ern­ing body (FI­FA), has been tak­ing their con­cerns and pro­pos­als to Min­is­ter of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment- Sham­fa Cud­joe, as per an agree­ment with both leagues, the nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee, the man­agers of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion.

The mem­bers of the boards of both leagues do not be­lieve they are.

An agree­ment was reached among the pro and su­per leagues, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion and the Min­istry of Sports for the Uni­fied League in the form of a Na­tion­al League, to re­place the ex­ist­ing set-up of the T&T Pro League and Su­per League as the top tier and sec­ond-tier tour­na­ments. The four or­gan­i­sa­tions had even agreed to cre­ate a Steer­ing Com­mit­tee con­sist­ing of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from each or­gan­i­sa­tion to pi­lot the League.

This new de­vel­op­ment comes in the wake of crit­i­cisms by Min­is­ter Cud­joe over the lack­lus­tre re­spons­es from the pro league and T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion to the of­fi­cial re­open­ing of sports in a safe-zone arrange­ment.

Cud­joe said the T&T Pro League has been cry­ing and say­ing the min­is­ter and her gov­ern­ment have been sti­fling foot­ball, but now that the sport has re­turned, there have been lit­tle to no re­spons­es from the pro league and TTFA.

"The way, for in­stance, the Pro League was cry­ing out, I ex­pect­ed to see the Pro League and the T&TFA pull up their socks and get out there but that is not hap­pen­ing," Cud­joe said.

On Thurs­day Guardian Me­dia Sports reached out to mem­bers of pro league out­fits W Con­nec­tion, San Juan Jabloteh, Point Fortin Civic and Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed for com­ments on Cud­joe's state­ment, but was di­rect­ed to act­ing chair­man Brent San­cho who was de­scribed as the des­ig­nat­ed spokesper­son for the league.

San­cho, the Cen­tral FC found­ing mem­ber told Guardian Me­dia Sports that Cud­joe's state­ment has left them ask­ing if the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee chair­man Robert Hadad and his mem­bers have been ar­tic­u­lat­ing their con­cerns to the min­is­ter of sports.

As such a de­ci­sion was tak­en to pen an of­fi­cial let­ter to min­is­ter Cud­joe ex­press­ing their con­cerns and the way they in­tend to move for­ward as a unit. The let­ter is ex­pect­ed to reach min­is­ter Cud­joe's of­fice in a few days' time.

In De­cem­ber last year, the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee was ex­pect­ed to make a pre­sen­ta­tion to min­is­ter Cud­joe re­gard­ing the league, but since then, how­ev­er, there has been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion re­gard­ing that pre­sen­ta­tion or if it in fact did take place.

Ac­cord­ing to San­cho yes­ter­day: " The pro league board de­cid­ed they will write di­rect­ly to the min­is­ter of sports, so a let­ter is be­ing penned by the board to put to the min­is­ter of sport to ar­tic­u­late their po­si­tion and to ar­tic­u­late the time­lines of what tran­spired over the last year and a half.

As a found­ing mem­ber of Cen­tral FC, the T&T Pro League was ap­proached by the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee head about a Uni­fied League and was al­so told that any com­mu­ni­ca­tion that would go back to the gov­ern­ment should go through the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee.

We re­quest­ed at that point in time, that the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee as­sist with play­ers who were not be­ing paid be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, through the COVID re­lief fund that was giv­en to them by the FI­FA, and al­so to re­quest from the min­is­ter of sports, the last tranche of monies that were Cab­i­net-ap­proved, al­so to as­sist with play­ers who were not play­ing be­cause of the re­stric­tions of the pan­dem­ic, but both re­quests were de­nied ac­cord­ing to the head of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee," San­cho said.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed that there are con­cerns re­gard­ing the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee which is not hold­ing up to its end of the agree­ment which could lead to a break-away by the clubs.

Cud­joe claims that her min­istry has been await­ing pro­pos­als from the pro league was al­so met with dis­gust, San­cho ex­plained: "We have sent in pro­pos­als. We have sent in a mock-up of a Cab­i­net note about a year and a half ago and all of this was a pre-agree­ment with the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee. So we had a few pro­pos­als in, and then the dis­cus­sions came about the Uni­fied League which, at that point in time, the pro league, through the un­der­stand­ing of the NC that all dis­cus­sions re­gard­ing league foot­ball had to go through the steer­ing com­mit­tee/nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee."

He con­tin­ued: "It was sup­posed to be an of­fi­cial Na­tion­al League that would now serve as the qual­i­fiers for CON­CA­CAF and serve as the top and sec­ond-tier league of T&T. Every­thing else in T&T would have been con­sid­ered a mi­nor league. When the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee met with the min­is­ter of sports re­gard­ing the league, they took the con­sol­i­dat­ed ap­proach of what was said by the stake­hold­ers, but when we asked to send their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, that was not done, so what we said in dis­cus­sion was pre­sent­ed to the min­is­ter of sports, how­ev­er, we are not cer­tain if it was the same things dis­cussed."