With the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) announcing that its Electoral Congress will be officially held on November 14th, its largest affiliate, the Georgetown Football Association (GFA) has initiated the first step in its mandated constitutional reform process.
The meeting which was held yesterday in the Boardroom of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA), will be the first in a series of meetings that will be used specifically to go through the template of the GFF draft constitution for its members associations.
Acting President of the GFA Lavern Fraser-Thomas said the main purpose of the meeting was to inform the association’s member clubs about the timeline given by the GFF for the associations to get themselves in order and what is required of the GFA’s members by its old constitution to become eligible to participate at the association’s election.
She further said that a date for the GFA elections might also be discussed and finalized at the forum. According to the official timeline for the GFF Constitution Reform and Congress, meetings for adoption of each member’s new constitution should conclude by September 25th.
The timeline also stated that meetings to elect new executive committee members should occur by October 30th, with the GFF congress programmed to be held on November 14th.
On September 3rd, Chairman of the GFF Normalization Committee Clinton Urling while confirming the date of the GFF Congress, had declared that the entity will not meet its initial September deadline. He further said the committee will be applying to FIFA for approval of the November 14th extension.
Installed in the month of October 2014, the Normalization Committee’s main objective is to reform the constitution of the GFF and all its affiliates before the original 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 currently commencing 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 eight 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.
Similarly being amended was 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.
