Jame­son Rigues, in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the T&T Su­per League will re­main in his post un­til the post coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, while oth­er mem­bers and is­sues will be un­der­tak­en at to­day’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) which will take place vir­tu­al­ly.

The high­light of to­day’s AGM was ex­pect­ed to be the con­test­ing of the post of Pres­i­dent be­tween Rigues and for­mer na­tion­al foot­ball team cap­tain Clay­ton Mor­ris.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day Rigues in his po­si­tion of in­ter­im T&TSL pres­i­dent wrote to the mem­ber­ship the fol­low­ing let­ter.

RE: Trinidad and To­ba­go Su­per League AGM - Elec­tion of Pres­i­dent

I write to you in my ca­pac­i­ty as First Vice Pres­i­dent - TTSL, now In­ter­im Pres­i­dent, ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion and Bye-Laws of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Su­per League (TTSL) and wish to con­firm the hav­ing tak­en all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions well with­in my man­date and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to en­sure the strict and prop­er op­er­a­tion of the TTSL with­in the Con­sti­tu­tion and Bye-Laws, Statutes and Codes of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Su­per League with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence to our TTSL AGM 2020.

As you are aware, the Mem­bers of the Board of the TTSL have set No­vem­ber 29th 2020 as the date to host the TTSL AGM 2020 and the mem­bers of the Board have al­so stat­ed that the AGM will be host­ed vir­tu­al­ly and you have been pro­vid­ed with the Agen­da.

Hav­ing re­ceived the ex­pressed ma­jor con­cern of cer­tain mem­bers of the TTSL with re­spect to the fact that the ‘Elec­tion of Pres­i­dent’ is list­ed on the Agen­da, which is in con­tra­ven­tion with the di­rec­tions of the TTSL Con­sti­tu­tion, Ar­ti­cle 26.1 that states; “Elec­tions shall be con­duct­ed by po­si­tion and shall be con­duct­ed by se­cret bal­lot” and the TTSL Bye-Laws, Ar­ti­cle 30.1, which al­so states; “Elec­tions shall be con­duct­ed by po­si­tion and shall be con­duct­ed by se­cret bal­lot” I dis­patched two let­ters in this re­gard to seek the best man­ner of en­sur­ing the strict and prop­er op­er­a­tion of the TTSL.

The first let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 13th 2020, was sent to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for host­ing the TTSL AGM at a venue that would pro­vide for live as­sem­bly with­in the COVID-19 re­stric­tions of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The sec­ond let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 23rd 2020, was sent to the Nor­mal­iza­tion Com­mit­tee to en­quire whether an “Elec­tion for Pres­i­dent” was con­sid­ered ac­cept­able to the TTFA and by ex­ten­sion FI­FA.

This mis­sive was sent in keep­ing with the TTSL Statutes and the TTSL Elec­toral Code Ar­ti­cle 27.2 which clear­ly states; “TTFA has the right to in­ter­vene in the elec­toral process of the TTSL at any time to mon­i­tor its in­tegri­ty and check that this Code and the statutes and reg­u­la­tions of TTFA are be­ing ap­plied.” As well as in ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cle 27.3 of the Code al­so warns that; “TTFA may like­wise sus­pend or in­val­i­date the elec­toral process and/or ap­point a pro­vi­sion­al ad­min­is­tra­tion for TTSL, as the case may be.”

The TTFA’s let­ter of re­sponse dat­ed No­vem­ber 25th 2020, from the Nom­i­nal­iza­tion Com­mit­tee Chair­man Robert Hadad, with re­spect to “Host­ing of Elec­tions Vir­tu­al­ly” has stat­ed: “the TTFA strong­ly rec­om­mends that the Elec­tion of Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions not be con­duct­ed via vir­tu­al (on­line) plat­forms to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process and sys­tem. The host­ing of elec­tions re­quires an in­creased lev­el sen­si­tiv­i­ty as man­dat­ed by the se­cret bal­lot mod­el which may not be read­i­ly avail­able or com­plete­ly in­fal­li­ble via on­line plat­forms.”

In this re­gard and in con­for­mi­ty with the strong rec­om­men­da­tions of the TTFA, as In­ter­im Pres­i­dent of the TTSL, I wish to con­firm the TTSL AGM shall pro­ceed as planned on Sun­day 29th No­vem­ber 2020, how­ev­er, the Agen­da items will be en­ter­tained ex­cept for Elec­tion of Pres­i­dent which shall be held post COVID-19 re­stric­tions and in keep­ing with the TTSL Con­sti­tu­tion, Bye-Laws and the TTFA state­ment of recog­ni­tion of con­di­tion for Elec­tions.”

I look for­ward to an en­joy­able, pro­duc­tive, peace­ful AGM 2020, de­void of ac­ri­mo­ny and trust my sober di­rec­tions will be re­spect­ed in light of the tur­bu­lent time of Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball with the re­cent­ly lift­ed FI­FA sus­pen­sion and to have the prop­er con­duct of the busi­ness of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Su­per League, to en­sure all the rights of the mem­ber­ship are re­spect­ed and guar­an­teed with­in the TTFA Fam­i­ly.

Mean­while, Rigues, who took over the helm of the or­gan­i­sa­tion fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Look Loy on Oc­to­ber 16, three days af­ter Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in ruled FI­FA’s de­ci­sion to ap­point a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to run T&T foot­ball as “il­le­gal”, the for­mer TTFA tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee chair­man Look Loy told his mem­ber­ship that he has run his race. Look Loy, 67, had played a piv­otal role in the TTFA failed le­gal fight against FI­FA from March 17 af­ter FI­FA re­moved the elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive.