Port-of-Spain Net­ball League (POSNL) Pres­i­dent Deb­bie Ann Fran­cois is chal­leng­ing in­cum­bent pres­i­dent Sher­ryAnn Black­burn for the pres­i­den­cy of the Net­ball Trinidad and To­ba­go (NTT) at the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) on Sat­ur­day.

Fran­cois, who was re-elect­ed as Pres­i­dent of the POSNL on Jan­u­ary 29, is an ex­pe­ri­ence net­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor. She is the present gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CNA) and al­so served as gen­er­al sec­re­tary and as the NTT first and sec­ond vice pres­i­dent.

How­ev­er, stake­hold­ers are up in arms over NTT’s de­ci­sion to changed the AGM from an in-per­son meet­ing to a on­line for­mat less than 24 hours be­fore the meet­ing and with­out the ap­proval of the gen­er­al coun­cil.

One per­son on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia Sports it is un­eth­i­cal to change the meet­ing to an on­line one at short no­tice. “You are sup­posed to in­form peo­ple way in ad­vance. Be­cause peo­ple need to set them­selves up. I get prob­lems on my phone and with Zoom and oth­er vi­tu­al plat­forms. You don’t know if I have a lap­top at home. You can­not put on a meet­ing of this mag­ni­tude.”

She added the de­ci­sion has in­con­ve­nienced the stake­hold­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those from To­ba­go who al­ready made their way to Trinidad for the meet­ing.

The source added the move is al­leged plot to keep Schools Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion from at­tend­ing the meet­ing. “They felt sec­ondary school will be com­ing to the meet­ing. So if you are on­line, they can block who they want from par­tic­i­pat­ing. You have In­ter­net is­sues, peo­ple drop­ping off, then I have to wait for you to bring me back in the room. We don’t know who is go­ing to be mon­i­tor­ing the plat­form. Who is mon­i­tor­ing the plat­form? We don’t know.”

The source who wished to re­main uniden­ti­fied con­tin­ued ques­tioned the in­tegri­ty of the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive. “What is all this about? All of a sud­den, it’s safe­ty con­cerns. I want to know if you’re un­der threat. And we all know it’s be­cause sec­ondary school has come in the meet­ing. And sec­ondary school con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly are free to come to the meet­ing to deal with their is­sue. And what is so amaz­ing, you can­not deal with the is­sue un­til oth­er busi­ness, which is af­ter the elec­tion.”

When Guardian Me­dia Sports spoke to Black­burn on Wednes­day and ask ques­tions about T&T Sec­ondary Schools As­so­ci­a­tion and their par­tic­i­pa­tion at the AGM, she re­spond­ed, “Are you ask­ing if they are com­pli­ant? They are not com­pli­ant.”

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed that Sec­ondary Schools As­so­ci­a­tion had paid their cap­i­ta­tion and af­fil­i­a­tion fees for 2023 and 2024, and sub­scrip­tion fees for 2025 were al­so paid.

Calls and text mes­sages sent to the pres­i­dent, Sher­ryAnn Black­burn were unan­swered.

NET­BALL EX­EC­U­TIVE ELEC­TIONS CAN­DI­DATES

PRES­I­DENT

Sher­ryAnn Black­burn vs Deb­bie Ann Fran­cois

1ST VICE PRES­I­DENT

Kay­la Kei­th-Wil­son vs Joel Young-Strong

2ND VICE PRES­I­DENT

Coreen David vs Lisa Stanis­claus

SEC­RE­TARY

Mar­sha Be­dasie vs La Yaoya Wick­ham

AS­SIS­TANT SEC­RE­TARY

Dana George vs Ker­res­sa Scott

TREA­SUR­ER

Joseanne Thomas vs Hy­acinth Hart

PUB­LIC RE­LA­TIONS OF­FI­CER

Daystar Swift vs Ak­il Pe­gus