T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) has been asked to of­fer a pub­lic apol­o­gy to T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League's (TTPFL) Tier 2 cam­paign­ers Guaya Unit­ed FC for their in­volve­ment in the south-east club not con­test­ing the Big 6 Play-Off, which is in the fi­nal stage.

The apol­o­gy was de­cid­ed on by a re­quest from Guaya man­ag­er and own­er Randy Ha­gley on Sat­ur­day at the TTFA's an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM).

Guaya foot­ballers thought they had sewn up the sixth-place spot in Tier 2, which would have au­to­mat­i­cal­ly earned them a place in the Big 6 based on the FI­FA head-to-head rule, as both they and Harlem Strik­ers were locked on the same points and goal dif­fer­ence. How­ev­er, the Strik­ers lodged an ap­peal on Guaya's use of strik­er Der­ron John, who was among the goalscor­ers in their fi­nal match with Bethel SC which end­ed 4-2 in Guaya's favour. Ha­gley as­sured the mem­bers his team's trans­fer of John from San Juan Jabloteh was done suc­cess­ful­ly with­in the of­fi­cial Do­mes­tic Reg­is­tra­tion Win­dow of Ju­ly 27 to Au­gust 17, and it was the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion that erred in the process.

The TTFA, through a Spe­cial Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee, on Sep­tem­ber 16 is­sued a let­ter to Guaya in which it ad­mit­ted to hav­ing made a mis­take in the process.

The let­ter stat­ed: "The Com­mit­tee was pre­sent­ed with an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a trans­fer of a play­er name­ly Der­ron John, from San Juan Jabloteh to Guaya Unit­ed. The dis­pute aris­es as Guaya Unit­ed re­quest­ed the trans­fer of Mr John af­ter the clo­sure of the Do­mes­tic Reg­is­tra­tion Win­dow 'trans­fer win­dow' and the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, in er­ror and with­out the req­ui­site ap­proval to sat­is­fy the pro­vi­sions of Ar­ti­cle 10.3 of the TTPFL Reg­u­la­tions, 2023. Fol­low­ing the trans­fer, Mr John went on to play a TTPFL Tier 2 match for Guaya Unit­ed against Bethel SC where he went on to score the de­ci­sive goal pro­pelling Guaya Unit­ed to the Play­offs on goal dif­fer­ence."

Os­mond Down­er, pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion raised the is­sue at the AGM and it was agreed that the TTFA had le­git­imised the trans­fer. As a re­sult, it was de­cid­ed by the mem­ber­ships that Guaya should be com­pen­sat­ed for their loss.

Nigel Ro­mano, the mem­ber of the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee chaired the meet­ing and was said to have agreed that the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion was in the wrong re­gard­ing the im­prop­er trans­fer of John.

Guardian Me­dia Sports al­so learned that Ro­mano agreed that Guaya should be com­pen­sat­ed.

Ha­gley said he was asked what sort of com­pen­sa­tion he want­ed and he said, that while he was dis­ap­point­ed with the re­cent de­vel­op­ments and felt that his team does not want to play in the league any­more, he would, in the in­ter­est of not stop­ping the league, ask for a pub­lic apol­o­gy from the TTFA.

As such, it was de­cid­ed by the mem­bers that Down­er would draft out the apol­o­gy this week for ap­proval by the mem­bers for the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion to is­sue for pub­lic con­sump­tion.

Ha­gley said he was pleased by the way things went at the meet­ing and con­grat­u­lat­ed Ro­mano, whom he said showed to­tal fair­ness.

"I feel at ease now be­cause I know Guaya Unit­ed did noth­ing wrong. Based on dis­cus­sions of a pos­si­ble le­gal process, it was de­ter­mined that a court of law would have stopped the fi­nal from be­ing played.

"How­ev­er, this is not what I want, I want to see foot­ball tak­ing place, and be­sides that, the mat­ter is al­ready far gone. The on­ly way I would have asked for the league to be stopped is if Harlem Strik­ers was in the fi­nal be­cause they were not the ones to lodge the protest," Ha­gley ex­plained.

The Guaya man­ag­er in giv­ing a re­count of what tran­spired said: "All the in­fo re­gard­ing the trans­fer of John was sent to Jabloteh by mid-Ju­ly. It was ap­proved by Jabloteh in ear­ly Au­gust and was sent again for ap­proval by the TTFA well be­fore the close of the win­dow. We got ap­proval for the play­er on Au­gust 6, the same day we were sched­uled to play Bethel SC, so we did noth­ing wrong," Ha­gley said.

Mean­while, the third and fourth-place play-off in tier 2 was set to be de­cid­ed yes­ter­day at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma be­tween Queen's Park and Harlem Strik­ers.

The fi­nal is set for to­mor­row at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, be­tween FC Phoenix and Pe­tit Val­ley Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed.