A hot­ly con­test­ed race for the pres­i­den­cy of the T&T Su­per League has de­vel­oped.

In­ter­im pres­i­dent Jame­son Rigues, who took over from for­mer pres­i­dent Kei­th Look Loy fol­low­ing his res­ig­na­tion on Oc­to­ber 16, is set to face chal­lenges from for­mer Strike Squad cap­tain Clay­ton Mor­ris for the lead­er­ship po­si­tion.

Mor­ris, 58, con­firmed that he will be con­test­ing the pres­i­den­cy, and will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for to­tal sup­port to the play­ers, who he con­sid­ers the most im­por­tant stake­hold­ers. There have al­so been ru­mours that board mem­ber Col­in Mur­ray has sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to con­test the po­si­tion.

How­ev­er, Mur­ray said on Wednes­day that he will not be con­test­ing the TTSL elec­tion, in­sist­ing while he is com­fort­able on the board, he does not want any part of lead­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Mor­ris, on the oth­er hand, ad­vanced his case in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Sports, "It's not a mat­ter of who I am up against, the thing is that I am putting up my­self to give the del­e­gates an op­tion in one that, if you go back to my com­ments from ever since I have been a play­er, I have al­ways been one to vouch for play­ers, for re­spect for play­ers, re­spect for coach­es, so that ad­min­is­tra­tions can un­der­stand that play­ers are the main stake­hold­ers in the sport," Mor­ris said.

Mor­ris, a 1989 Strike Squad stand­out, who has been the coach of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the T&T (UTT) for the past sev­en years, said he wants to join the fight to lift the coun­try from the low­est po­si­tion the sport is at present­ly, as well as go back to the draw­ing board to help the play­ers get the nec­es­sary train­ing, etc.

Mor­ris, who was sol­id cen­tral de­fend­er, who was In­duct­ed in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go's Sports Hall of Fame in 2015, has con­duct­ed a de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme at the na­tion's pris­ons and has worked in the Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion's De­part­ment where he says he has gar­nered suf­fi­cient ex­pe­ri­ence to con­test the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent at the elec­tions.

It means Rigues will face a stiff con­test for the top post in the Su­per League. A for­mer man­ag­er at two-time Su­per League cham­pi­ons Guaya Unit­ed, Rigues, the League's first vice pres­i­dent, was put un­der pres­sure in his at­tempts to make a smooth take-over of the lead­er­ship of the league by the Board mem­bers who had called on Look Loy to hold on to the post un­til the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) which is now set for No­vem­ber 29.

Rigues had called on the board to ad­here to the con­sti­tu­tion which al­lows the first vice pres­i­dent the pow­er to as­sume the in­ter­im pres­i­dent po­si­tion in the event of the res­ig­na­tion of the stand­ing pres­i­dent.

He told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Wednes­day that he is aware he has no sup­port from the board.

"I sit as the top per­son in the board at the mo­ment and I don't feel that I have the sup­port of the mem­bers, how­ev­er, there are mem­bers of the TTSL who have in­di­cat­ed oth­er­wise, that they are in­ter­est­ed in my­self con­tin­u­ing in that role. I be­lieve the mem­ber­ship is the supreme body and my in­ten­tion has al­ways been and will al­ways be to lis­ten to the mem­ber­ship. So if the mem­ber­ship feels that Clay­ton Mor­ris or Col­in Mur­ray, or any Board mem­ber for that part is best suit­ed for the job, then that is fine by me, I would ac­cept that," Rigues ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he said, that it should nev­er be a sit­u­a­tion where the board should de­cide on who the next pres­i­dent should be, say­ing that ought to be a mat­ter for the clubs.

He ad­mit­ted that though he has had dif­fer­ing views to that of the for­mer pres­i­dent in the past, there should be no hard feel­ings to­wards him, as he has al­ways be­lieved in ex­press­ing his views, which on many oc­ca­sions were jus­ti­fied.

The Guaya man­ag­er said while there might be the fear that he may have a dif­fer­ent agen­da to the mem­bers of the Su­per League, he be­lieves that they should all want the best for the or­gan­i­sa­tion.