The mem­ber­ship of the North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NFA) is de­mand­ing that the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) and Elec­tion of Of­fi­cers, which have been post­poned ear­li­er this year, due to the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, be held and a new ex­ec­u­tive is elect­ed to man­age their af­fairs.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed on Mon­day by an as­so­ciate who is in­volved with the de­vel­op­ments that a pe­ti­tion was signed by 14 out of the 19 First Di­vi­sion clubs, was de­liv­ered to the ex­ec­u­tive ear­ly last month call­ing for an Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing (EGM) to de­cide on the way for­ward for the as­so­ci­a­tion if the AGM is not called.

An­tho­ny Har­ford, who was pres­i­dent at the time, re­signed last month say­ing that the sport in T&T had been at the end of a se­vere beat­ing and he could no longer stand the blows. How­ev­er, he promised to ho­n­our pro­to­col and be at the AGM when it is called, to hand over to his suc­ces­sor.

Rashawn Mars, the as­so­ci­a­tion's sec­re­tary, in the ab­sence of the pres­i­dent, was giv­en the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of con­ven­ing the AGM but has re­fused to call it.

Among, the 14 clubs call­ing for an AGM or EGM are — Com­bine FC, Har­vard Sports and Cul­tur­al Club, Mor­vant El­e­ments, Mis­cel­la­neous Laven­tille, RSSR, Pe­tit Val­ley, Pat­na Riv­er Es­tate FC, St Fran­cois, Trend­set­ter Hawks, Seek­ers FC, Front­line FC and Bel­mont FC among oth­ers.

How­ev­er, four clubs, Cul­tur­al Roots, Malvern, Can­taro FC and North Coast, did not sign the pe­ti­tion.

The mem­bers are de­mand­ing an­swers as to why there were no prize monies for the past three years, even though there was a spon­sor, and why did clubs have to pay reg­is­tra­tion if that amount was tak­en care of.

Har­ford in his res­ig­na­tion let­ter, ad­mit that prize monies for 2019 were not paid, and said: "I will dis­cuss any mat­ters out­stand­ing and look for­ward to a smooth tran­si­tion. These mat­ters were not dis­cussed ear­li­er be­cause the ar­chi­tect of the change tak­ing place in the NFA, did not show up for planned meet­ings with the ex­ec­u­tive.”

Trend­set­ter Hawks coach An­tho­ny Wick­ham who is bet­ter known as 'Da­da' said there has been grow­ing dis­con­tent with­in the NFA and the AGM but said he was giv­en an as­sur­ance that an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing, which was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for last week­end, will be held this com­ing week­end and it will be used to de­cide on a date for the AGM.

'Da­da' who is known around the coun­try for his tal­ent in coach­ing foot­ball, not­ed that he will not ex­press fur­ther un­til the ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing is held. He con­firmed how­ev­er that prize monies for last year were not paid out.

Con­tact­ed Mars said his ex­ec­u­tive can­not call any meet­ing be­cause of the COVID-19 lock­down, and gave the as­sur­ance that once the re­stric­tions are lift­ed the AGM will be called.

"This was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the mem­bers over a month ago. Hold­ing an AGM re­quires a lot of peo­ple and be­cause there is a 15-per­son lim­it giv­en by the gov­ern­ment due to the coro­n­avirus. We are un­able to do it. I don't know why they are forc­ing some­thing that can­not hap­pen."

Mars, who said he was con­fused by the pe­ti­tion, ex­plained that the AGM had been called since Sep­tem­ber 2 but the lock­down forced its post­pone­ment.

He de­scribed the NFA as one of the most or­gan­ised as­so­ci­a­tions in T&T foot­ball, say­ing any mem­ber in­ter­est­ed in find­ing out about the fi­nances of the as­so­ci­a­tion can come in­to his of­fice and see for them­selves.

Mars called on his mem­bers to read the con­sti­tu­tion of the NFA and un­der­stand it, say­ing all their con­cerns will be al­le­vi­at­ed if this hap­pens.