Look Loy: T&T football ‘brain dead’

According to Look Loy, decisions are being made without consulting all of the association's board members. The board meets once per month and the last meeting was held on May 6.

"Since May, the board of the TTFA has been constructively dismissed in favour of the so-called 'emergency committee' that has been appointed by the board itself. The only real emergency in the TTFA is the emergency that is being created by the mishandling of the association by the president and his cohorts," he said.

He said board members have never seen a contract for the matches played by the T&T senior en's team over the past year, and questioned how money is being distributed.

"No contract for any international friendly has ever come before the board of the TTFA for agreement. We don't know how much the agent is being paid, and we surely don't know how much money the TTFA is receiving," he said. "Show me the bank records, this is not the private business of the president. TTFA always in court. People always have to be taking them to court because they owed money."

He says despite the disorder and recent calls for his removal, he will not resign as he has a responsibility to the people of T&T. In March, the TTFA attempted to legally challenge the legitimacy of his 2017 appointment to the board of directors but was unsuccessful. Look Loy says he has no plans to run for any executive positions in the TTFA's elections in November.

"I am interested in football, not in football posts or positions," he said.

He described the situation as 'abuse' and 'serious injustice' for young footballers, and says that there is not enough football being played in T&T.

Look Loy said, "The only country that not playing football right now that going to the Gold Cup is Trinidad and Tobago. Everybody else is playing football, why are we not playing?" T&T will compete in the Concacaf Gold Cup which runs from June 15 to July 7. Their first match is on June 18 against Panama.

"We sitting down and we don't know when football will start, but we talking about picking national teams. Where these players coming from?" he said.

Also present were Northern Football Association (NFA) general secretary Rayshawn Mars, and T&T Women's Football League (WoLF) president Susan Joseph-Warrick.

They agreed with Look Loy and said they want good governance in T&T football.

Joseph-Warrick said, "We've seen it numerously in the press and the media that apparently it's only Mr Look Loy that is fighting the case but we are there. We just want the public to know that we are here to ensure that good things happen in football."

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Look Loy unhappy with T&TFA mismanagement.
By Nigel Simon (Guardian).

Out­spo­ken T&T Su­per League (TTSL) pres­i­dent Kei­th Look Loy says he is un­hap­py with the mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion.

Look Loy was speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Nor­mandie ho­tel in St Ann’s yes­ter­day, which he called to high­light three ma­jor is­sues fac­ing lo­cal foot­ball un­der the lead­er­ship of TTFA pres­i­dent David John-Williams.

In his ad­dress, Look Loy, who was ac­com­pa­nied by North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion gen­er­al sec­re­tary and for­mer na­tion­al youth goal­keep­er Rayshawn Mars and Women’s League of Foot­ball (WoLF) pres­i­dent Su­san Joseph-War­rick, said he was speak­ing on be­half of five cur­rent mem­bers of the board who were un­hap­py with the T&TFA's op­er­a­tions as it per­tains to foot­ball in the coun­try.

In ad­di­tion to him­self, Mars and Joseph-War­rick, Look Loy said the two oth­er dis­sat­is­fied boards mem­bers were Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s Col­in Par­tap, a lawyer and Joseph Tay­lor, pres­i­dent of the T&T Ref­er­ees As­so­ci­a­tion.

The oth­er per­sons com­pris­ing the 13-mem­ber T&TFA board are John-Williams, Sel­by Browne (Vet­er­an Foot­ballers' Foun­da­tion of T&T), South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Richard Quan Chan, To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TFA) pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Moore; in­ter­im East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent (EFA) Ban­dele Ka­mau; T&TFA vice-pres­i­dent Ew­ing Davis; Sherqyn Dy­er (East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union) and Ju­lia Bap­tiste (T&T Pro League).

Look Loy said on be­half of the five mem­bers he was reach­ing out to the gen­er­al pub­lic to con­vey their dis­sat­is­fac­tion about some im­me­di­ate mat­ters in the T&TFA and the gen­er­al mal-ad­min­is­tra­tion of the lo­cal board.

He said their ma­jor con­cerns sur­round­ed the en­tire mis­han­dling of the Un­der-23 Olympic team's with­draw­al from their qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign, change of spon­sor­ship for the na­tion­al team from Ju­ma to Capel­li Sport and the lack of vi­sion for the women’s foot­ball pro­gramme.

Joseph-War­rick al­so is­sued a press re­lease in which she ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment at be­ing con­stant­ly dis­re­gard­ed by the T&FA in mat­ters re­lat­ed to the women’s na­tion­al pro­gramme, main­ly the se­lec­tion of a women’s team coach.

Reached for com­ment by Guardian Me­dia Sports, John-Williams once again re­it­er­at­ed his stance re­gard­ing the ru­mours be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed over the al­leged nam­ing of North Amer­i­can-based Stephan De Four as na­tion­al Un­der-17, Un­der-20 and se­nior women’s coach.

He said: "Please be ad­vised that the TTFA has not em­ployed any­one ei­ther con­trac­tu­al­ly or oth­er­wise in the role of na­tion­al head coach for our Girls Un­der-17 and Un­der-20 teams. The ac­tiv­i­ties of any­one per­pet­u­at­ing oth­er­wise are there­fore not con­duct­ed un­der the aus­pices nor in­struc­tion of the TTFA."

Asked whether the with­draw­al of the Olympic men’s team was ever dis­cussed at board lev­el, the T&TFA boss replied: "Please note that the board of di­rec­tors dis­cussed the Un­der-23 and it de­cid­ed that the board will hold its po­si­tion of hir­ing a coach be­cause fund­ing was not avail­able."

Last month, Richard Quan Chan said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence that the TTFA had no funds and no spon­sor had stepped for­ward, so the tech­ni­cal de­part­ment of the T&TFA had de­cid­ed the team would be pulled. The TTFA said the board doesn’t de­cide which com­pe­ti­tions T&T plays in or not, but rather the fi­nances of the T&TFA gov­erns that.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed that both Look Loy and Joseph-War­rick formed the quo­rum at the May 6 board meet­ing and were in­volved in the dis­cus­sions on the is­sues raised. In ad­di­tion, John-Williams ex­plained: “The meet­ing dis­cussed that we would en­gage Mr De Four via dis­cus­sions with re­gards to per­son­al terms be­fore we can hire him and the mat­ter must be tabled at the next board meet­ing which is yet to take place. The per­son­al terms were dis­cussed and were en­su­ing, how­ev­er, the meet­ing agreed that no con­tract was to be signed or agreed up­on be­fore it comes be­fore the board.”