After being banned last year, former Region 10 Chairman and ex-Upper Demerara Football Association (UDFA) chief Sharma Solomon has returned to head the association, winning the presidential post uncontested yesterday during their electoral congress.
Hosted at the Linden Enterprise Network building, Solomon returned to the helm of football in the region after his only challenger Wayne Bethune declined the nomination. Prior to yesterday’s polls, the association following discussions with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Normalization Committee, adopted a new constitution on September 9th, paving the way for elections to be held.
Former GFF vice-president Collie Hercules and Claude Williams were elected as the association’s vice-presidents while former APNU Member of Parliament Vanessa Kissoon will serve as the entity’s Organizing Secretary. Terrence Mitchell was elected as the association’s Secretary and Ansawatt Barrett will serve as the Treasurer. Three committee members were also elected to office.
Solomon’s re-election along with several other members of his new executive follows the lifting of their bans on June 26th 2015 during a GFF Extraordinary Congress staged at the Marriott Hotel in Kingston.
On January 17th last year, the GFF General Council under then President Christopher Matthias during their first congress of the year, suspended the entire executive body of UDFA which was at the time under the stewardship of Solomon. The suspension was a result of the UDFA’s decision to disregard the congress’ initial verdict that the association cannot host their GT Beer tournament finale on New Year’s Day, parallel to the Georgetown Football Association (GFA) Banks Beer final.
Apart from Solomon’s ban, all current members of the association including then GFF Vice-President Hercules were slapped with five year suspensions.
