Pro League 2nd Division on

The Com­mit­tee al­so dis­cussed the re­quest for the on­go­ing As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Foot­ball League to be ex­tend­ed in­to a sec­ond round, how­ev­er, the Com­mit­tee de­cid­ed against ap­prov­ing the re­quest.

The Na­tion­al Foot­ball Com­mit­tee, which was ap­point­ed by the TTFA's Board of Di­rec­tors on Au­gust 28 with wide-rang­ing pow­ers to re­view the struc­ture, ad­min­is­tra­tion, man­age­ment and op­er­a­tion of all foot­ball in T&T, com­prised of TTFA Di­rec­tors, Sel­by Browne, Ju­lia Bap­tiste, Col­in Par­tap and An­tho­ny Moore.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from the Com­mit­tee on Tues­day, the mem­bers re­viewed mat­ters re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee by the TTFA af­ter the mem­bers elect­ed Browne as chair­man and Moore as sec­re­tary.

The re­lease stat­ed, "With re­spect to the mat­ter of the per­mis­sion grant­ed by the TTFA Board of Di­rec­tors to its mem­ber club Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers FC to op­er­ate a pre-sea­son In­vi­ta­tion­al Tour­na­ment, and the fact that no re­quest was re­ceived from the mem­ber club to op­er­ate a sec­ond round of the tour­na­ment, the Com­mit­tee not­ed that a con­di­tion of the orig­i­nal per­mis­sion grant­ed by the TTFA to Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers was that the tour­na­ment will come to an end should As­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball com­mence. The Com­mit­tee al­so not­ed the fact that the Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers FC was in­clud­ed in the re­quest of the TT Pro League Clubs to be­gin the TT Pro League 2019 sea­son on Oc­to­ber 4th, 2019."

The Com­mit­tee added that "Be­cause the mem­ber club had al­so agreed to par­tic­i­pate in the restart of the TT Pro League com­pe­ti­tion on Oc­to­ber 4th, then no ex­ten­sion of the As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Tour­na­ment was rec­om­mend­ed."

When asked who re­quest­ed the ex­ten­sion of the sec­ond round of the league Browne said, "The re­quest to the TTFA for a sec­ond round was made by the As­cen­sion League Tour­na­ment Com­mit­tee."

Con­cern­ing the Pro League ap­proval for a sec­ond-tier di­vi­sion, the re­lease stat­ed, "The Na­tion­al Foot­ball Com­mit­tee re­viewed the pro­pos­al from the TT Pro League Lim­it­ed for the es­tab­lish­ment and op­er­a­tion of a two-tier league be­gin­ning on Oc­to­ber 4th, 2019. The Com­mit­tee, re­viewed the sev­er­al struc­tures and re­sources of the TT Pro League stat­ed in its pro­pos­al and de­vel­oped over some two decades and af­ter con­sid­er­a­tion, gave the favourable rec­om­men­da­tion of ap­proval for the re­quest of the TT Pro League to be­gin on Oc­to­ber 4th, 2019."

The re­lease al­so point­ed out that, "Com­mit­tee Chair­man, Sel­by Browne sought and re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion from the Chair­man of the SPORTT Com­pa­ny, Mr. Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho, the fact that the Sport Com­pa­ny had in its ac­count the funds ap­proved by the Gov­ern­ment of T&T for the TT Pro League Clubs par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2019 League, and await­ed the com­ple­tion of re­quire­ments of cer­tain clubs for dis­burse­ment."

When Guardian Me­dia Sports in­quired about the FI­FA For­ward mon­ey Browne said, "The TTFA has not yet re­ceived the FI­FA For­ward mon­ey."

The re­lease stat­ed, "The Com­mit­tee al­so re­viewed the con­di­tions for which the FI­FA For­ward fund­ing would be used to strength­en the Elite Two-tier foot­ball in T&T to strength­en Pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball and to build a path­way for all foot­ball clubs to reach to the Elite lev­el of foot­ball in T&T. The FI­FA fund­ed path­way to the TTFA will in­clude all TTFA Mem­ber clubs with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence to the TTFA Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions Zones.

The re­lease not­ed that "In light of the facts out­lined, the Com­mit­tee con­firmed its rec­om­men­da­tion that the TT Pro League be­gin its 2019 sea­son on Oc­to­ber 4th, 2019."

Chair­man Browne al­so out­lined plans to con­sult with all foot­ball stake­hold­ers, in­vestors, TTFA mem­ber clubs, re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions, ad­min­is­tra­tors, foot­ballers, coach­es, tech­ni­cal ser­vice providers, foot­ball venue own­ers, on the es­tab­lish­ment of a de­fined struc­ture and path­way for the or­ga­ni­za­tion­al re­struc­tur­ing of na­tion­al foot­ball in T&T from the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el to the pro­fes­sion­al club.