Following a meeting with a majority of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) affiliates on Wednesday evening, Normalization Committee Chairman Clinton Urling declared that the entity will stage its electoral congress on November 14th pending approval from FIFA.
An article in this newspaper on August 30th had said that the federation was considering November 14th as the date for the GFF Congress.
During the month of July, the federation chief had said he was unsure if the entity could complete its mandate of restructuring Guyana’s football landscape before the FIFA stipulated September deadline.
Speaking to media operatives following a presentation for the Stag Beer Elite League, Urling said “Last evening we held a meeting with the members of the federation. We invited all but all didn’t show up. We basically laid out a plan for the next congress of the GFF, which will be held on November 14th so we won’t meet the September deadline”.
He further said “We have already communicated this to FIFA for their executive committee to approve but I’m confident that the date will be approved by FIFA”.
According to Urling “The meeting we had yesterday was to ask our member associations if that date was sufficient to get all the requirements and prerequisites that they need to get in order for the congress and we all agreed”.
Urling further noted “We have already distributed the templates to all the Elite League clubs and we are working with the affiliates to give them the templates. A meeting will have to convene to adopt that constitution and after they adopt the constitution, there is a requirement there that they will have to give about three weeks’ notice to their members to elect a new executive committee”.
He declared “We have about six weeks to issue a formal notice of the congress to our members. We haven’t done that as yet but we had this meeting and we are making the announcement generally but we will do that in time”. According to Urling “Once it is done and they have their executive committee, they will nominate their delegates for the congress. Only those who are eligible and meet the requirements will be at the congress and if we have a quorum, we go forward and if there is no quorum we have to kick the football back to FIFA to tell us how to proceed”.
“I’m pretty confident that we will make the November 14th deadline and we will have a congress. The main requirement is to adopt their constitutions and then elect their executives” he added.
Installed in the month of October 2014, the Normalization Commit-tee’s main objective is to reform the constitution of the GFF and all its affiliates before the aforesaid September deadline.
To date, only a new federation constitution has been adopted following an Extraordinary Congress held on June 26th, with the process to reform the body’s now 22 affiliates still to commence even though they Normalization Committee will serve as the electoral committee.
Some major amendments to the new constitution saw the federation membership being increased to 22 affiliates, 10 more than the previous allotment.
The new members of the federation will include the eighth Elite League teams as well as newcomers the Guyana Futsal Association and the Guyana Beach Football Association.
The eight Elite League clubs which will be allowed a vote at GFF Congresses in the future are Alpha United, Slingerz FC, Pele FC, Georgetown Football Club, Guyana Defence Force, Monedderlust FC, Buxton United and Fruta Conquerors.
Also being amended is the voting count. Under the previous GFF constitution, each of the nine associations had two votes each while each affiliate had one vote apiece. This translated to 21 votes at the sitting of any congress.
With the increasing of the membership in the new constitution, each member will only be allowed one vote in the form of the entity’s President which equates to 22 votes.
