By Ras Wadada

Clinton Urling,former chairman of the Normalisation Committee (NC)which was installed by FIFA to administrate the game of football, is still maintaining that a contract was made between the inaugural eight Elite Clubs and the then football governing authority in Guyana.In response to comments made last Friday by the head of the GFF,Wayne Forde,at a Press Conference to announce the start of the Elite League, the former Chairman spoke to Chronicle Sport via telephone from New York.
“I maintain my position that the NC,being the representative head of the GFF,a year ago put together the modalities of the League where we held several discussions over months with all the parties involved and at the end of it all we had a mutual agreement between the GFF under the NC and the eight members of the GFF’s Elite League.
“We agreed upon, and it is not just the Rules and Regulations that we agreed upon, we also, at that time agreed on how we will administer the relegation and delegation part where teams would have been part of the current construct for a period of two years.The reason for that two years came about because teams indicated that they would have invested enormous sums of monies to participate in the first League and it would have been disadvantageous for them to participate for just one year,since it would be difficult to recoup their investments.So we agreed mutually to run the League with the current construct for two years.
“Regulations are on-the-field regulations and I think that is what Mr.Forde is referring to, with his extensive football knowledge, but ours went beyond on-the-field, ours actually talked about the structure of how the League would be administered. Again agreements are contracts between parties and those agreements should be honoured.
“For me, I have no further comment on this particular matter and issue. If the ExCo believes gravely that back pedaling on the agreement is the right thing for them to do they are free to do so. In my judgement the better approach would have been just the way we came up with the contract by mutual agreement through negotiations and compromises with all parties involved. I would have recommended to this current ExCo to go the similar route to resolve this impasse that had arrived and I hope this is the end of this scenario.
“I am surprised at the accusation that I have been listening to one side of the story and that is not so, I have been intimately involved in establishing this League and my comments are based on my knowledge,so I have been talking to the Media from where I am here in NY.
“It would be premature of the ExCo to host a press conference to announce the start of the League when four of your clubs, including the two top teams are not in, due to them seeking an arbitration the day before…maybe that is a tactic of extensive football knowledge that I don’t have and Mr Forde has. It will be interesting to see what happens if those four clubs aren’t a part of the League.
“This is certainly not what you want just before your premier competition starts. When we launched the Elite League we said it was going to be the litmus test for the success of the Guyana Football Federation and football in Guyana generally.
“In Guyana, we still seem to love to approach the national team on the International arena as the Premier football product, but for us the NC at the time, we felt that the Elite League, which has a longer term investment in our local players development and also was a logical avenue for upcoming younger players to say we want to ascribe to become Elite League players, should be the product and that was an ultimate goal of the programme.
“To start your premier competition under these dark cloud circumstances is not good for the game in Guyana and for me the way it is looking and, if it is not resolved, we have failed that litmus test”, Urling quipped.