By Joe Chapman

PRESIDENT of Linden’s Net Rockers Football Club, Akani Blair, has signalled his intention to run for the presidency of the Upper Demerara Football Association (UDFA).

Blair plans to unseat the current boss, Terrence Mitchell, when the regional body stages its Annual General Meeting.

That AGM, according to Blair, is due by the end of this month after it was postponed for a year by the Guyana Football Federation.

Blair, who has been very outspoken as head of Net Rockers about the state of affairs re football, in the bauxite mining town, spoke to this newspaper in an exclusive interview.

“Football died a few years ago and we have nothing coming from the current administration to bring about the change that is necessary, which will allow for football to be played in this region,” he said.

He said that a change is necessary to allow football to develop as “we all know for football in order to be played efficiently, we must be able to attract sponsors to allow our football to develop. And from the angle which I am coming that is something I will definitely bring on board.”

The club official noted, “My club is one hundred percent behind me. I spoke with other clubs from across the region and got the feeling of their support.”

Asked what makes him feel that there will be an election soon for the UDFA, he responded, “Well that is the issue we would have had. The UDFA elections would have been constitutionally due last year November. And they were granted an extension for some reason by the GFF of a year. Which means at the end of November this year, we should have an election.”

However, Blair quipped: “But I think because of COVID-19 pandemic, and I would even say the lack of pro-activeness of the current administration of the UDFA; there has been a falling out within the UDFA and everything simply has ground to a halt.

“This COVID-19 allows them the big excuse, but they have been on a downward trajectory for a very long time. COVID-19 or not they would have been in this same position. What COVID-19 did is it took the embarrassment off them but we all know that the UDFA is in shambles and nothing was going on,” he continued.

“However, because of the fact that these elections are constitutionally due this November and nothing has been happening, I rather suspect that the GFF is going to grant another extension. Because their Congress is coming up on December 12, 2020 and if that should happen, it means that we are going to be heading into another year with another extended executive with the UDFA.”

Should the election not happen as anticipated, Net Rockers boss outlined his steps, saying, “I am prepared to fight that vigorously and to ensure that that does not happen. What I am thinking is to petition the GFF and say to them that we the General Council are prepared to grant this extension only for the facilitating of the GFF Congress. But after the GFF Congress is over, UDFA must get on with the business of elections, as constitutionally due.”

“While I am not so confident that the UDFA’s General Council is going to get that commitment from the GFF, what I can say is that we are going to make the representation and let us see if the GFF will ignore the General Council of the UDFA to satisfy the gains of a few.”

“The management of the clubs has been crying out for a long time about the UDFA and it continued to fall on deaf ears. The UDFA believes that they are a power onto themselves and because they are being facilitated by the GFF in some regard, they feel that it is business as usual.

“But the clubs have been crying out. It is not that the clubs didn’t try to have a no-confidence against UDFA last year executive they did try. But even that ran into trouble.

“I can’t remember the details or the specifics of what happened, but there was an attempt of a no-confidence motion that didn’t go well. So the clubs had actually made a bid to get this executive removed.”

Blair informed that “letters are being drafted and the UDFA clubs are to be contacted and by tomorrow (Friday) we should get all or most of the signatures from the clubs so this process can go forward.”

Efforts to have a response from the president of UDFA, Terrence Mitchell, or General Secretary Ms Dawn Barker have been futile.