THE clubs affiliated to the Upper Demerara Football Association (UDFA) met on Wednesday in Linden at the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) building with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and adopted a new constitution. Chairman of the GFF Normalisation Committee Clinton Urling, General Secretary Richard Groden and his Assistant Deidre Davis along with Marketing and Communication Director Rawle Toney met with the clubs and after discussing the draft document in its entirety, the clubs present unanimously voted to adopt the new Constitution.
Present at the meeting were Blue Berry Hill, Botofago FC, Winners United, Kwakwani Strikers, Retrieve Lions, Topp XX FC, Hi-Stars, Winners Connection, Amelia’s Ward FC, Milerock FC, Eagles United, Silver Shattas FC and Vasco FC.
The adoption of the new constitution now paves the way for the UDFA to hold its Extraordinary Meeting to elect a New Executive Committee on Thursday, October 1.
The Bartica and Essequibo football associations will go through a similar exercise during next week. The GFF Congress is scheduled for November 14.
It was a long time coming for the UDFA, who had the suspension of its former executives lifted when the GFF had its Extraordinary Congress at the Marriott Hotel, to adopt their new constitution in June.
Former president Sharma Solomon, Collie Hercules, Terrence Mitchell, Wayne Bethune, Rawle Johnson, Jeffrey Trotman, Ansawatt Barrett, Patrick Dey and Clive Brushe saw their suspension that was imposed during the reign of Christopher Matthias, lifted.
Solomon, who once served as Chairman of Region 10, had been suspended for eight years while Hercules; an executive of the GFF as well at the time, was given a five-year ban from the game.
The other executives had similar sentences like Hercules.
The aforementioned former officials were suspended by the Christopher Matthias-led GFF for playing the final of their GT Beer year-end tournament on January 1, 2014 at the Mackenzie Sports Club (MSC) ground simultaneously with the Georgetown Football Association’s (GFA) Banks Beer Cup final at the Guyana National Stadium.
Congress at the time believed that the two should not have been played on the same day but the UDFA explained that the final being played on New Year’s Day, 2014 meant a lot to the Linden community and as such went ahead with the hosting of their final.
It was also argued by Linden that a final in Linden would not be a hindrance to the final being played 65 miles away.
The suspended executives had full support from the clubs affiliated to the UDFA who until now did not recognise the decision handed down by the-then GFF Congress.