Wallace gets new TTFA mandate, John-Williams returns to company, club

Richard Fer­gu­son, the oth­er pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, was oust­ed af­ter the first round of vot­ing, as he re­ceived 10 votes to John-Williams’ 16 and Wal­lace’s 20 votes when the del­e­gates first sat down to de­cide who should take the coun­try’s foot­ball for­ward.

Af­ter con­ced­ing de­feat in the sec­ond round, John-Williams, who may claim a psy­cho­log­i­cal vic­to­ry to­day, hav­ing been able to hold yes­ter­day’s elec­tion in the Home of Foot­ball that was built through his own ini­tia­tive, stopped briefly to talk to re­porters, not­ing that he would he would now fo­cus on his busi­ness and club, be­fore dri­ving out of the com­pound.

Wal­lace emerged about 10 min­utes lat­er and was joined by Kei­th Look Loy, the man who start­ed the cam­paign to re­move the John-Williams-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Wal­lace, who will now have to re­lin­quish his po­si­tion as pres­i­dent of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), will take up of­fice at the TTFA from this morn­ing, along with first vice-pres­i­dent Clynt Tay­lor, Sam Phillip and Su­san Joseph-War­rick, whom all claimed vic­to­ry dur­ing the elec­tions yes­ter­day.

Tay­lor de­feat­ed Sel­by Browne 27-17 for the po­si­tion of first vice-pres­i­dent, Joseph-War­rick beat An­tho­ny Moore 30-10 for sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent and Phillip de­feat­ed Col­in Par­tap 27-13 for the third vice-pres­i­dent spot. Shymdeo Go­sine, the oth­er can­di­date in the toss-up for third vice-pres­i­dent, re­ceived three votes, while Ray­mond Thom, the oth­er sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent can­di­date, got four votes.

Wal­lace im­me­di­ate­ly told re­porters that his team will re­sume spon­sor­ship talks with all com­pa­nies, lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al, who had giv­en them com­mit­ments in the runup to the elec­tion.

He thanked God and oth­ers who sup­port­ed him and his slate, in­clud­ing the 47 del­e­gates who were el­i­gi­ble to vote yes­ter­day. One of the del­e­gates did not show up for yes­ter­days’ event. He said as they go for­ward seek­ing to ef­fect change, their first as­sign­ment will be a fact-find­ing one.

“We know it’s an oner­ous task, it’s a hard task, but the process starts with fact-find­ing. We’re not sure what we’re go­ing to meet in there, but we are up to the task, and by that I mean, you can­not just talk the talk but not walk the walk, so I am ready to walk the walk,” Wal­lace said.

He added, “One of the first things we will do is a prop­er au­dit on every­thing, on staff, fi­nan­cial­ly, etcetera. That’s the first thing. We’re go­ing in ba­si­cal­ly in the dark, so we need to get some light be­fore we start to move.”

The new foot­ball boss al­so brushed aside con­cerns that na­tion­al coach Den­nis Lawrence will be re­placed, say­ing he couldn’t say that at the mo­ment, as Lawrence had a con­tract.

How­ev­er, he high up on his agen­da will be to put the com­mit­tees of the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion, such as an ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee, in place to en­sure all ac­tiv­i­ties are prop­er­ly mon­i­tored.

“This busi­ness is not about William Wal­lace mak­ing de­ci­sions alone, but it’s about a col­lec­tive ef­fort. As a mat­ter of fact, one of the ma­jor things we want to do is to put an ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee in place, out­side of the oth­er com­mit­tees,” he said.

“Lots of peo­ple in T&T have in­di­cat­ed their in­ter­est in that, from le­gal peo­ple, busi­ness peo­ple and so on, so those are some of the per­sons that we will get di­rec­tion from, in terms of where we move from here.”

He al­so said bring­ing fans back to foot­ball would be an en­tire re­build­ing process, as they are al­ready think­ing about the 2026 World Cup cam­paign. This, he said, will start with the young play­ers, via putting prop­er pro­grammes in place where play­ers can come through and come through well.

“When we start to play good foot­ball, the fans will come out,” Wal­lace said.

He said he al­so be­lieves that their planned style of gov­er­nance, which in­cludes reach­ing out to all of T&T, will be an en­cour­age­ment to fans to come out.

RELATED NEWS

United not impacted
By Renaldo Matadeen (Newsday).

SECONDARY Schools Football League (SSFL) boss William Wallace has dethroned David John-Williams to become the new president of the TT Football Association (TTFA). Wallace will oversee local football for the next four years following the TTFA elections and annual general meeting, which took place at the Home of Football, in Couva, on Sunday, and he vowed to get funds, fans and the national team back in order.

The first round of voting after lunch saw 46 votes cast with Wallace receiving 20, John-Williams collecting 16 and Richard Ferguson ten. With Ferguson eliminated from the second round, 46 votes were cast again with Wallace winning the head honcho’s spot with 26 votes to 20.

“It has been a long two months. Now, we’re going straight into the fire and the job’s begun. There was a groundswell of support from people, as far as Martinique, who wanted to see a change in the status quo for the betterment of T&T’s football,” Wallace said after his victory. However, he made it clear he was adopting a patient approach when it comes to making changes, including that of sacking national coach Dennis Lawrence, who is under fire for a string of miserable results with the Soca Warriors.

“... we have to sit down and discuss that. Dennis has a contract so, up until this time he is still the national coach of T&T,” Wallace said. He did indicate he had the right counsel besides him to make such pivotal decisions, including Super League president and TTFA director, Keith Look Loy, laughing off claims the latter would be a “hindrance” to the new administration’s vision.

Wallace gleamed over his United TTFA front, who completed a clean sweep in the elections, starting with Clynt Taylor defeating Selby Browne of John-Williams’ Team Impactors by 27 votes to 17 to claim first vice-president. Susan Joseph-Warrick, of United TTFA, is now the second vice-president as she garnered 30 votes to Team Impactors’ Anthony Moore (ten votes) and Raymond Thom’s four votes for the Ferguson slate. Lastly, United TTFA’s Sam Phillip became the third vice-president with 27 votes by defeating Team Impactors’ Colin Partap (13 votes) and Ferguson’s candidate, Shymdeo Gosine, who could only muster three.

“We are going in in the dark so we need to get some light before we start. I think it (the victory) was more than my campaign. It was what was happening to TT football for the last four years. My campaign was basic but, now it’s all about the collective effort,” Wallace said. The new president divulged he would be having a more open style of governance and it would begin with proper audits on staff and financials. Wallace did reveal, though, he was willing to work with any member of the TTFA and all stakeholders to improve the game. John-Williams refused to offer comment to Newsday following his slate’s emphatic defeat but Team Impactors’ Facebook posted, “On behalf of Mr David John-Wiiliams, we would like to congratulate the new president of the TTFA, Mr William Wallace.”

Laying out some of his other plans, Wallace revealed upping fan turnout is a priority, as well as youth development. “We have to rebuild. We are starting to think about 2026 (World Cup) definitely. We have to start with your young players and put programmes in place so that our young players can come through and come through well. When we start to play good football, the fans will come out,” he added. He indicated he would also be focusing on other committees, particularly marketing and advertising, which were given just $21,000 in the current budget for the next fiscal year, to help boost the national setup. Wallace admitted it’s going to be a challenge but one he’s ready for.

“If I wasn’t ready I wouldn’t have gotten myself involved in this at all. It’s a hard task; the first thing starts with fact finding (and) we’re not sure what we’re going to meet in there. But we are up to the task. You can’t just talk the talk, you have to walk the walk,” he continued. Wallace also promised to look at partnerships to make the Home of Football economically viable, pursuing the controversial Nike deal making the rounds recently, while also seeking advice from legal and business experts on the new direction of the TTFA.

Newly-elected TTFA president Wallace dethrones DJW 26-20

John-Williams returns to company, club.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent David John-Williams will now re­turn to his busi­ness and foot­ball club W Con­nec­tion, af­ter los­ing his po­si­tion as leader of an as­so­ci­a­tion he hand­ed its own home af­ter more than 100 years with­out one.

He had a som­bre look on his face af­ter the ma­jor­i­ty of the 47 vot­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in yes­ter­day’s TTFA An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) and Elec­tion of of­fi­cers at the Home of Foot­ball in Bal­main, Cou­va, opt­ed to gave William Wal­lace, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed TTFA, the chance to man­age the af­fairs of the sport for the next four years fol­low­ing a 26-20 re­sult.

Wal­lace says he has com­mit­ments from sev­er­al lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al spon­sors to as­sist the as­so­ci­a­tion, which is in a fi­nan­cial hole and al­so has new plans to take foot­ball for­ward.

As he de­part­ed from the venue yes­ter­day, John-Williams wished the new ad­min­is­tra­tors of foot­ball and T&T foot­ball the best of luck. How­ev­er, he said it’s left to be seen how the coun­try’s foot­ball will move on from here.

Be­fore he pulled out from the Home of Foot­ball, John William told re­porters he will now move on with his life hav­ing done what he had to do.

“I have giv­en it my best shot and I will now move on,” John-Williams said.

Quizzed as to why he felt he was not suc­cess­ful at the polls, John-Williams said, “It’s dif­fi­cult to say. Se­cret bal­lot and peo­ple made their choic­es. I have my busi­ness to run, I have my club to run and maybe W Con­nec­tion now can get my full at­ten­tion.”

The em­bat­tled for­mer foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, who was ac­cused of lack­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, among oth­er things, dur­ing his four-year tenure, said he did not have any ad­vice for the new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“I will not ad­vo­cate any ad­vice for the win­ner. They maybe have their, what they want to do and their plans and I wish them all the best.”

Mean­while, AC Port-of-Spain tech­ni­cal and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment di­rec­tor Michael Awai said the vic­to­ry for the Unit­ed TTFA means his clubs will lose US$108,000, which will put them in a po­si­tion to have to look for the dif­fer­ence of be­tween $700,000 and $450,000 to start with. The amount would have been part of the fund­ing clubs would have re­ceived as part of a club de­vel­op­ment dri­ve John-Williams had ad­vo­cat­ed dur­ing his cam­paign for the pres­i­den­cy.

“Every oth­er club will have that prob­lem. I think that we will have to wait and see what Mr Wal­lace and his crew, in­clud­ing the Nike fund­ing he says he has, and all the oth­er things. We can’t diss him, we just have to wait and see what he says,” Awai said.

He added, “The on­ly way to change in foot­ball is de­vel­op­ment, noth­ing else. We have a build­ing now—the Home of Foot­ball, you can’t take that away from David John-Williams, that’s his lega­cy.

“But say­ing that, we are de­pend­ing on mon­ey from Nike and mon­ey from who­ev­er else to help the foot­ball is one thing, but it’s an­oth­er thing to have the de­vel­op­ment in place, be­cause that’s what was miss­ing, in my mind, in John-Williams’ tenure, the de­vel­op­ment of the foot­ball, which is why we suf­fered on the field of play.”

Wallace dethrones DJW as TTFA boss.
By Stephon Nicholas (Newsday).

William Wallace has dethroned David John-Williams as president of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA).

The Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) boss staved off a stiff challenge from John-Williams, to take control of local football for the next four years. The TTFA held its elections and annual general meeting at the Home of Football in Couva on Sunday morning.

The first round of voting saw 46 votes cast with Wallace receiving 20 votes, John-Willians collecting 16 and Richard Ferguson trailing with 10. Ferguson was eliminated from the second round and 46 votes were cast again. This time, Wallace reached a majority of 24 to seize control of the local football body.

The build-up to Sunday's elections was fraught with controversy as both sides sought to discredit their opponents. The embattled John-Williams and Team Impactors campaigned on the deliverance of the Home of Football, which was opened on Monday in style with FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in attendance.

Wallace's United TTFA team highlighted the poor results on the field of almost all the national teams as well as the numerous TTFA defeats in court, hence increasing the debt of the local governing body. John-Williams countered he met the TTFA in serious debt when he took office in 2015 and has reduced it during his tenure.

The victory of United TTFA puts national men's coach Dennis Lawrence's position in serious doubt as the United TTFA had promised to get rid of him if elected .