Rayshaun Mars, the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NFA), said Sat­ur­day's meet­ing which was called by some clubs in the zone was not con­vened by the gen­er­al sec­re­tary ac­cord­ing to the zone's con­sti­tu­tion.

Mars said he did not at­tend the meet­ing be­cause no in­vi­ta­tion was sent to the man­age­ment of the zone.

Asked if the meet­ing was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly called, Mars re­spond­ed: "While clubs do have a nat­ur­al right to do so there was a num­ber of flaws from the get-go with the pe­ti­tion all the way to their han­dling of set­ting things in place 'ac­cord­ing' to the con­sti­tu­tion, that was flawed."

In re­sponse to how many clubs need to re­quest a meet­ing. and the gen­er­al sec­re­tary needs to re­spond as out­lined in the con­sti­tu­tion, Mars stat­ed: "Fifty (50) per cent or more and yes the of­fice of the sec­re­tari­at has ac­knowl­edged their re­quest at least in com­mu­ni­ca­tion."

Asked if Sat­ur­day's (De­cem­ber 12 meet­ing) was called ac­cord­ing to the NFA con­sti­tu­tion, he re­spond­ed: "There were nu­mer­ous flaws as for the meet­ing to­day. The time frame for in­stance they did not al­low for the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly rec­om­mend­ed amount of time to lapse to have a le­gal meet­ing. The AGM is sched­uled for 28th of De­cem­ber 2020."

How­ev­er, Sat­ur­day's meet­ing which had on its agen­da the elec­tion of of­fi­cers did not have a quo­rum and has been resched­uled for De­cem­ber 26.

An­tho­ny 'Da­da' Wick­ham, the Trend­set­ter Hawks coach, told Guardian Me­dia Sports af­ter the meet­ing was called off that, "On­ly sev­en clubs were present in which six had vot­ing rights, so we had no quo­rum, so the meet­ing will now be held on De­cem­ber 26 (Box­ing Day). The con­sti­tu­tion says the re­con­vened meet­ing must take place 14 days af­ter which is Box­ing day. It will be held at the same venue at 10.30 am."

Wick­ham said that the clubs who at­tend­ed were Trend­set­ter Hawks, El­e­ments, Seek­ers, Laven­tille Utd, RSSR, and Part­ner Vil­lage. Re­al West Fort, the club of for­mer na­tion­al stand­out Ron LaFor­est, was al­so present but with­out vot­ing rights.

Wick­ham's slate which com­pris­es Ross Rus­sell (pres­i­dent); Wick­ham and Rod­ney Stowe (vice pres­i­dents), Michael Thomas (as­sis­tant sec­re­tary - Ad­min) and Nevick De­noon  (as­sis­tant sec­re­tary - Op­er­a­tions) with Ka­reem Paul and Dex­ter Har­ris as or­di­nary mem­bers.

Mean­while, Derek Ed­wards of Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed club ex­plained that the slate which is led by Richard Piper will be con­test­ing the meet­ing which is called by the NFA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Mars for De­cem­ber 28.

He said that slate com­pris­es - Richard Piper (pres­i­dent); Ed­wards and Tris­ton Charles (vice pres­i­dents); Mar­vin Small (as­sis­tant sec­re­tary - Op­er­a­tions) while the as­sis­tant sec­re­tary - Ad­min is yet to be named and Mark Ben­ny (or­di­nary mem­ber).

On Fri­day, Ed­wards said that Wick­ham's team is at­tempt­ing to go against the date set by the NFA ex­ec­u­tive, which is De­cem­ber 28.

Al­so on Fri­day, An­tho­ny Har­ford, pres­i­dent of the NFA told Guardian Me­dia Sports that, "The North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NFA) ex­ec­u­tive met fol­low­ing a pe­ti­tion from sev­er­al clubs in the North Zone and set De­cem­ber 28, 2020, for the Zone meet­ing ac­cord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion. This date was sent to the TTFA nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee which has agreed to this date and will be send­ing ad­ju­di­ca­tors for the meet­ing."                                                      

He said he will not be stand­ing for re-elec­tion and will be stand­ing down at the AGM on De­cem­ber 28. He said has no knowl­edge of any oth­er meet­ing and if the clubs have a meet­ing planned among them­selves, he has no in­for­ma­tion about that. He said if any­one needs any in­for­ma­tion on the AGM, they can con­tact Mars, the NFA gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

Mars said, "The ex­ec­u­tive and by ex­ten­sion the NFA is not against change that's the on­ly thing that is con­stant. On the 28th the par­ties that are run­ning to hold of­fice have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in a 'free and fair' elec­tion.

"The zone has been and is al­ways open to spon­sors who want to in­vest in the clubs and by ex­ten­sion the com­mu­ni­ties that are rep­re­sent­ed. They are un­de­ni­ably in­ter­re­lat­ed and as we look for­ward to the De­cem­ber 28, we are invit­ing the busi­ness­es and con­stituen­cy of­fice hold­ers to play a part or for those who have been to con­tin­ue to work in as­sist­ing zon­al foot­ball."