THE West Demerara Football Association (WDFA) said yesterday that they were not informed of Saturday’s staging of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Congress which passed a ‘No Confidence’ motion against Christopher Matthias.

Matthias was replaced by his vice-president Ivan Persaud who would serve in the capacity of acting president until an election is called within the next 60 days.

But speaking to Chronicle Sport last evening via telephone, president of the WDFA, Nigel Garraway, said, “As far as I’m aware, the WDFA participation at that Congress on Saturday was null and void.”

While the GFA was represented by its president Vernon Burnett and general secretary Odinga Lumumba and the WDFA’s secretary Elson Kairattie was present at the meeting that also saw participation from the East Demerara Football Association, National Association of Women’s Football, Guyana Football Referees Council and Guyana Football Coaches Association, forming two-thirds of the General Congress, “We at the WDFA had no knowledge of such a meeting or Congress being held in the first place. As far as I’m aware, only the GFF has the authority to reconvene the Congress. I spoke to the secretary at 10:00hrs on Saturday and still he didn’t inform me that he was present at the meeting,” Garraway said.

The media was locked out of the meeting which was held at Water Chris Hotel and as such, cannot report on the discussion which took place behind the closed-door congress of selective individuals, some of whom have no affiliation to football in Guyana.

Meanwhile, Charmine Wade, assistant secretary/treasurer of the GFA in an email said, “I am not and have not been part of any decisions, or had any discussions on this issue of the GFF’s Congress, the motion of No Confidence against the GFF’s Executives, etc, at the level of the executive of the GFA.

“As far as I’m aware, unless I wasn’t invited, there was never a meeting of the GFA Executive and or general council to discuss this issue”

“Further, I had no knowledge of the alleged reconvening of ‘Congress’ and to date, have not been informed/notified by the president, general secretary or any other executives of the GFA,” Wade said.

(By Rawle Toney)