SPORTS DESK

gm­sport@guardian.co.tt

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL), Col­in Wharfe, has en­tered the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­den­tial race.

Wharfe, of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced his can­di­da­cy yes­ter­day, de­clar­ing his readi­ness to con­test the role af­ter con­sult­ing with al­lies be­fore de­cid­ing on a re­lease ahead of the April 13 elec­tions.

“This de­ci­sion was not tak­en light­ly. I have a long his­to­ry of par­tic­i­pa­tion in lo­cal foot­ball, most re­cent­ly steer­ing the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League, and be­ing in­volved in craft­ing the medi­um-term strat­e­gy and plan for pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball,” said Wharfe in the re­lease

“I had dis­cus­sions with per­sons, with­in and out­side of the foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty, about ex­tend­ing my in­volve­ment in lo­cal foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion. Their sen­ti­ments and en­cour­age­ment have per­suad­ed me to play a larg­er part in lo­cal foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

He joins three oth­er can­di­dates, who have de­clared their in­ten­tions for the pres­i­den­tial role in­clud­ing pres­i­dent of the Vet­er­ans Foot­ball Foun­da­tion of T&T, Sel­by Browne, pres­i­dent of the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, Ke­iron Ed­wards and South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, Den­nis Lat­iff.

Last month at the Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing of the TTFA, at which 33 of the 47 mem­bers unan­i­mous­ly agreed to ac­cept the changes to be made to the con­sti­tu­tion, al­so in­voked the right of the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee led by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, to call fresh elec­tions and con­clude the man­date hand­ed to them by the sport’s world gov­ern­ing body- FI­FA, in March of 2020.

Wharfe is cur­rent­ly in charge of the TTPFL which is in its first full sea­son. He has worked with T&T Pro League clubs and was the chair­man of the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee of the 2022 Tiger Tanks Un­der-20 Tour­na­ment.

Ex­press­ing his aware­ness of the con­cern for the state of foot­ball in this coun­try, he stat­ed that he was ready to do his part.

“Fol­low­ing the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the TTFA statutes and the sub­se­quent an­nounce­ment of the date for ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee elec­tions, T&T foot­ball is rapid­ly mov­ing from nor­mal­i­sa­tion to nor­mal­cy. There is a de­sire for change and I be­lieve I can lead the change. The statutes, along with their en­abling poli­cies and pro­ce­dures, if ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed and rig­or­ous­ly ad­hered to, pro­vide a frame­work and guardrails to bring about the de­sired change at the TTFA,” said the CEO of the TTPFL.

He went on to cite his tenure in lead­er­ship roles dur­ing his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, which em­pha­sizes his qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the po­si­tion ac­cord­ing to Wharfe in the re­lease.

“I bring a wealth of busi­ness lead­er­ship ex­pe­ri­ence that is ap­plic­a­ble and trans­fer­able to this job, he said.

“These were de­vel­oped and nur­tured dur­ing my 30-year ca­reer at one of the top pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices firms in the world; where I held se­nior lead­er­ship po­si­tions in the re­gion and man­aged the lo­cal branch­es of sev­er­al glob­al client ac­counts.

“I pos­sess the skills to ad­vance the work that has al­ready be­gun and of which I have been a part, so I de­cid­ed to run for the post.”

He con­tin­ued, “I feel com­pelled to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead an ex­pand­ed team that will pro­pel T&T foot­ball. I fer­vent­ly be­lieve that foot­ball can be a dri­ver of so­ci­etal en­gage­ment and na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion, at a time when mul­ti-faceted ap­proach­es are need­ed.”

He added, “Dis­cus­sions are cur­rent­ly be­ing fi­nalised with in­di­vid­u­als to com­prise a di­verse and pro­fes­sion­al team, and ‘The Slate’ will be re­vealed as we move ahead to­ward the elec­tions.”