Upper Demerara Football Association (UDFA) Presidential hopeful Akanni Blair has released his 12-member slate that will contest the Upper Demerara Football Association elections when the association eventually stages its constitutionally mandated Electoral Congress.
The members of his slate are Avery Trim, Troy Daniels, Gregory Harris, Fonala Trim, Susan Jervis, Troy Easton, Dellon Peters, Karen Perreira, Yodessa Welcome, Xavier Sanmoogan and Anthony Stephens.
Blair made the disclosure during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday.
According to Blair, the cadre of individuals selected to form the team, who can be labelled as young professionals, possess the necessary passion for local development, especially in the region of Linden.
“As I had said before in a previous interview, these individuals are young professionals and you would have tried everything else in the past and the young professionals were never tried. This particular group has a passion for development particularly development in the Linden region as well as nationally at large. They are also football enthusiasts. The members of my slate are mostly prominent Lindeners and one from the sub association Kwakwani,” he explained.
Blair said that the current administration lacks the hallmark of transparency and accountability adding that his team will restore those essential tenets if elected to office.
“We will bring more efficiency, transparency and accountability which has been missing in the current administration. There is no transparency now, they are always hiding things and are a power unto themselves and are not accountable to anyone. They are not accountable to the UDFA General Council, they feel they own the football,” he expounded.
“The UDFA is in shambles, it does not have a functional executive at the moment, it’s just a one-man or two-men show. They haven’t had a statutory meeting in almost a year. And at the moment, there is a major fallout among the executives. Things are bad ok,” he added.
Blair admitted that he is unsure of the date of the elections as no concrete or official information has been forthcoming from the association despite its Electoral Congress being constitutionally due before the end of November, following an extension from the federation in November of 2019.
He posited, “What I can say is that when l made the decision to run I immediately called some of the members of the current executive including the president and informed them of my intention, the only resistance came from the president. I asked about the elections and none of the executive members but the president, can say when it was going to be. When I enquired from the president he said it’s constitutionally due in March which I found a little odd.”
Efforts to contact incumbent president Terrence Mitchell for a comment proved futile. Several calls to his cellular phone went unanswered up to press time. According to Blair, given that the GFF Congress is scheduled for December 12th, he would support another extension of the current UDFA administration tenure, once the election is held shortly after.
He stated, “If the GFF congress is due in December it means that it’s a tight timeline. And given the current state of affairs of the UDFA, pulling off an election before the GFF constitutionally due congress in December is a sure impossibility. Last November the GFF had given the UDFA an extension of a year on its constitutionally due elections of 2019. If the UDFA is unable to hold those elections as mandated then I’ll suggest that another extension is given for the purpose of holding the GFF congress. But as soon as the congress is held, the business of the UDFA elections must go on. We will not accept no other condition, it has been way too long with this sort of nonsense. The general council of the UDFA deserves better!”
