Lee Davis, a vice pres­i­dent of Pris­ons FC, has joined the race for the pres­i­den­cy of the T&T Su­per League which is ex­pect­ed to be con­test­ed when the or­gan­i­sa­tion holds its an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) and elec­tion of ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers on Sep­tem­ber 19.

Davis is the hold­er of a Mas­ters De­gree in In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nance and promis­es to use his ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence to solve the is­sues of com­pli­ance, as well as to strength­en the po­si­tion­ing of the clubs and the league in the fu­ture.

Davis who comes high­ly rec­om­mend­ed as the vice pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion and chair­man of the East Zone has been an­nounced a slate that in­cludes Ed­di­son Dean, as the first vice pres­i­dent, sec­ond vice pres­i­dent An­dre Barnard, who is in­volved in foot­ball in the South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (SFA), and or­di­nary mem­bers George Joseph, Nicholas Gopaul and Kurt Hen­ry, an­oth­er mem­ber of the ref­er­ees as­so­ci­a­tion.

Davis said he was en­cour­aged to en­ter the elec­tions race by a col­league of his at his club, but out­side of that, he has a re­al prob­lem with the way the sport is be­ing man­aged, par­tic­u­lar­ly by those want­i­ng to splash mon­ey to de­pen­dent clubs and leagues, which he be­lieves is not the so­lu­tion to the prob­lems be­ing faced now.

Davis told Guardian Me­dia Sports: "I was in­volved in foot­ball for the last 25 years as a ref­er­ee. I was an in­ter­na­tion­al ref­er­ee, I was in­volved in the ref­er­ees' com­mit­tee at the TTFA lev­el and I feel I can play my part and try to help in any way pos­si­ble. One of the things that are re­al­ly bug­ging me is the set of mon­ey that some peo­ple want to throw in­to the foot­ball. I don't think that will help the clubs and it will not help the sport. The clubs and League don't un­der­stand that they can man­age their own af­fairs and be more self-suf­fi­cient and self-re­liant while man­ag­ing their own fi­nances in­stead of look­ing for hand­outs and hand-me-downs."

Davis is set to face chal­lenges from Ryan Ot­t­ley, the De­fence Force team man­ag­er who was in­stru­men­tal in en­sur­ing that his team which was among sev­en Su­per League clubs that we al­leged to have been sus­pend­ed by the TTFA, be­came ful­ly com­pli­ant, as well as Ke­iron Ed­wards, the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (EFA) pres­i­dent. Ed­wards said once he's suc­cess­ful he will step down as EFA pres­i­dent.

On Au­gust 27, the al­leged sus­pend­ed TTSL clubs (Cen­tral 500, De­fence Force, Harlem Strik­ers, Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre, To­ba­go Phoenix, WASA and the Youth Stars) got re­newed hopes of hav­ing be­ing re­in­stat­ed as full mem­bers for the first time since 2018 when T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Amiel Mo­hammed said the TTFA has no doc­u­men­ta­tion to show that any Su­per League clubs were sus­pend­ed by the TTFA.

Davis said that the com­pli­ance is­sue be­ing faced now is a re­sult of poor gov­er­nance and pro­ce­dures, and fi­nance is­sues. "A sim­ple thing like a club, no mat­ter how un­com­plexed it sup­pos­es to be, the mere writ­ing up of a con­sti­tu­tion should not be rock­et sci­ence."