For­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er and cap­tain Clay­ton Mor­ris is the new pres­i­dent of the T&T Su­per League (TTSL).

At a his­toric vir­tu­al elec­tion yes­ter­day, he got the bet­ter of Jame­son Rigues 8-0 with one ab­sten­tion, for the right to re­place for­mer pres­i­dent Kei­th Look Loy un­til Au­gust 2021 when elec­tions will be held again to sig­nal the end of Look Loy's term.

Up­on win­ning, Mor­ris said it was a re­al­ly good feel­ing, com­par­ing it to when he was giv­en the cap­tain­cy of the na­tion­al team.

"I played foot­ball for all these years, cap­tained Rangers for all these years from all the dif­fer­ent lev­els, from Un­der-13, all the way up to U-19, but when I got the cap­tain­cy of the na­tion­al team it was a whole dif­fer­ent feel­ing. So this brought me back to that feel­ing," Mor­ris, who cap­tained T&T's now in­fa­mous 'Strike Squad', said yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Rigues, who had held the po­si­tion of in­ter­im pres­i­dent at the time, and did not at­tend yes­ter­day's elec­tion be­cause he con­sid­ered it to have been il­le­gal­ly called, was on the beach when the re­sults were tab­u­lat­ed. He told Guardian Me­dia Sports, Mor­ris might as well warm up the seat for him when a le­git­i­mate elec­tion is held among the full mem­ber­ship, next year.

Be­fore the elec­tion could take place among nine clubs - Club San­do, Bethel Unit­ed, Queen's Park Crick­et Club (QPCC), San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants, Matu­ra Re-Unit­ed, Pris­ons, RSSR, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), sev­en teams vot­ed in sup­port of a rec­om­men­da­tion to have the vir­tu­al elec­tion at the an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) for the first time.

Con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­pert Os­mond Down­er was on hand to guide the day's le­gal pro­ceed­ings as con­tro­ver­sy brewed over the de­ci­sion to have the elec­tion mi­nus the se­cret-bal­lot process. And Down­er did make his pres­ence felt as he was called up­on to de­clare that Sat­ur­day's Emer­gency Gen­er­al Meet­ing (EGM) held by Rigues, was con­sid­ered il­le­gal.

Down­er, the man who played a piv­otal role in draft­ing the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) con­sti­tu­tion which is aligned to that of FI­FA's, had al­so ex­plained that four of the sev­en sus­pend­ed clubs- To­ba­go Phoenix, Youth Stars, Cen­tral 500 and WASA FC - could not be re-in­stat­ed by the TTSL since their sus­pen­sion for non-com­pli­ance was hand­ed down by the par­ent TTFA, mean­ing the TTSL could do noth­ing about it.

The oth­er three clubs, how­ev­er, Harlem Strik­ers, De­fence Force, and Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre were or­dered to re­main on sus­pen­sion for the next six months and take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put things in or­der for their re-en­try in­to foot­ball next year.

Ed­di­son Dean, the League's sec­ond vice pres­i­dent said the mem­ber­ship al­so de­cid­ed that if the three clubs (De­fence Force, Harlem Strik­ers, and Mara­bel­la FCC) are not ready to be re-in­stat­ed af­ter the six-month grace pe­ri­od, then they will be sus­pend­ed in­def­i­nite­ly un­til they are ready.

Mor­ris told Guardian Me­dia Sports soon af­ter, that his elec­tion to the top post in the Su­per League, doesn't mean that foot­ball will be well served but it will be­gin the wheel of change.

"I can't say foot­ball will be well served, but what I would like to see be­cause every­thing takes time, is a lit­tle drop in the buck­et and even­tu­al­ly we will get there.

"Giv­en the chance to be at this lev­el, at the ad­min­is­tra­tion lev­el where it will have an im­pact on this lev­el, with re­spect to, be­ing on the TTFA board, it is some­thing we lacked for many years, get­ting some­body who re­al­ly came through the trench­es, who un­der­stands what it is to be out on the field, who un­der­stands the emo­tions that play­ers feel, the sac­ri­fices that they make. So giv­en that op­por­tu­ni­ty now, I can share that with the oth­er peo­ple with all the oth­er ex­per­tise, to bring a bal­ance."    

The new TTSL foot­ball boss said since foot­ball clubs are some of the rich­est or­gan­i­sa­tions in the world, he will seek to en­sure that they are struc­tured prop­er­ly, they are com­pli­ant and li­censed, and they are prop­er­ly well or­gan­ised to bring them in line with in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball clubs at that lev­el, not­ing that while it may seem im­pos­si­ble now, once struc­tured prop­er­ly, you can go to cor­po­rate T&T to get fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance.

Yes­ter­day, a few clubs stayed away from the elec­tion as a show of sup­port for Rigues against what they con­sid­ered to be a breach of the con­sti­tu­tion to have the elec­tion vir­tu­al­ly. Some of them in­clude Guaya Unit­ed, a two-time win­ner of the TTSL, Pe­tit Val­ley Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed and Cunu­pia FC, among oth­ers.

Rigues said the re­sult means that there are peo­ple who are hell-bent on break­ing the con­sti­tu­tion for their gain, say­ing he will lose now but will win in the end.

"As for me and my team, we could ac­cept los­ing to win, be­cause the greater pic­ture will be in Au­gust 2021. I don't know how a meet­ing could make a de­ci­sion to­day with a mi­nor­i­ty of clubs and not the ma­jor­i­ty."

The for­mer Guaya Unit­ed man­ag­er al­so took of­fence to the de­ci­sion of the sus­pend­ed clubs, say­ing the TTFA has it­self strug­gled with its own com­pli­ance is­sues and some clubs were wait­ing on the TTFA to find out about the sta­tus of their com­pli­ance.