FORMER board member of the TT Football Association (TTFA) Brent Sancho described the media release by former TTFA president William Wallace explaining the contracts signed under his tenure as poor and it led to more questions than answers.
“It is a list of poor excuses and it has left more questions than answers really,” Sancho told Newsday, on Thursday.
For the past few weeks, Wallace was criticised for some of the decisions he made under his tenure. The contracts signed under Wallace’s leadership that raised eyebrows included those of national senior men’s coach Terry Fenwick, marketing executive Peter Miller and TTFA general secretary Ramesh Ramdhan.
Wallace was criticised for making decisions without board approval which included Fenwick’s deal.
On Wednesday, in a six-page response, Wallace admitted he made mistakes, but also said other TTFA members were aware of the contracts that were signed under his leadership. Wallace said he had nothing to do with Fenwick’s contract and that was the responsibility of the TTFA Technical Committee, led by Look Loy. Look Loy has stated Wallace was involved in Fenwick’s contract.
Sancho said he thinks the decisions by Wallace may have been kept hidden if these were not leaked. “It’s hard for me to get past the fact that if all of this did not come out into the public domain if they would have mentioned any of this to anyone. Whether it be the board members, the membership of the TTFA, the fans of the TTFA, the players, if anybody would have known.”
The United TTFA, led by Wallace, defeated the David John-Williams administration in November 2019 and took over the running of the TTFA.
Wallace led the TTFA until March 2019, before Fifa appointed a normalisation committee to run T&T football. Fifa decided to take control of the TTFA because of low financial management methods and a massive debt facing the local football body, which is understood to be $50 million.
The United TTFA is currently in a court battle against Fifa. The United TTFA says Fifa does not have the right to remove democratically elected officials.Sancho said it is time that the United TTFA give up on their case against Fifa. “I think it is mind-boggling that these guys have the audacity to even continue with this court case.”
The former T&T footballer said this is not strong leadership. “At the end of the day the membership and the stakeholders entrusted them with running the association and they have shown nothing but a lack of respect to the membership, a lack of respect to the board and total disdain to every moral fibre that is supposed to surround leadership.”
Richard Quan Chan, president of the Southern Football Association, said the United TTFA seems disorganized. “The whole thing is too disjointed. I recognize these two people as two intelligent people. Keith has been involved in football for a long time (and) William is even president of the (Secondary) School (Football) League. They should understand what contracts are all about and…as they call themselves the United TTFA there should be some kind of conversation between them as to what is going on.”
Look Loy said if the United TTFA wins the court battle against Fifa, Wallace’s future would depend on the membership of the TTFA at a meeting.
“It is the membership that put him there and it is the membership that will determine his future,” Look Loy told Newsday on Wednesday.
Members of the United TTFA, including Look Loy, are not pleased with some of the decisions made by Wallace, but as a group they are fighting Fifa on their decision.
“We looking at this in two separate lenses. William Wallace as the president was elected and has undertaken some actions (and) he will face the consequences for that.”
Look Loy continued, “Wallace remains part of United TTFA, we (United TTFA) remain part of TTFA. We (are) fighting the case, if we lose the case we walk away and Fifa could do what they want…but if we win the case our next and first immediate action after winning the case is to call a membership meeting to address all that has happened and to address the presidency of William Wallace and the Wallace administration. That is the position we are taking.”