With elections for the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) only weeks away, several names notably Odinga Lumumba, Alfred King and former GFF Vice-President Rawlston Adams are being touted as possible candidates for the top post.
Lumumba, who is a former Presidential Advisor under the previous Peoples Progressive Party (PPP)/Civic government, is the current President of GFF Elite League Club Alpha United and a former GFA general secretary.
On the other hand, Adams, who is the Demerara Harbour Bridge Manager, served in the GFF under previous GFF president Christopher Matthias before resigning while King is the current Guyana Football Referees Council President and a former GFF Presidential candidate in the previous election.
Question marks also exist as to whether former President Matthias and /or former federation Presidential hopeful in the previous election Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major will contest the polls or will be part of a respective slate.
King and Major as well as former GFF Vice President Ivan Persaud lost their bid for the presidency of the federation to Matthias following an Electoral Congress at the Pegasus hotel on April 12th 2013.
According to sources close to the federation, King, Lumumba and Adams are supposedly being tipped in several footballing circles to head respective nine member slates for the November 14th Electoral Congress.
The sources say that the aforesaid trio had to await the conclusion of the congresses of the federation’s affiliates before submitting documentation to the GFF and making their respective Presidential aspirations public.
According to the sources, the deadline for the submission of slates is October 24th and the eight affiliates of the GFF presently are known to have adopted their new constitutions.
The affiliates are the Georgetown Football Association, East Bank Football Association, Bartica Football Association, Essequibo Football Association, Berbice Football Association, Upper Demerara Football Association and Elite clubs Pele FC and Fruta Conquerors.
Installed in the month of October 2014, the Normalization Committee’s main objective was to reform the constitution of the GFF and all its affiliates before the aforesaid September deadline but an extension was granted and the d ate rescheduled to November 14. To date, a new federation constitution has been adopted following an Extraordinary Congress held on June 26th while the process to reform the body’s now 22 affiliates is ongoing.
Some major amendments to the new constitution saw the federation membership being increased to 22 affiliates, 10 more than the previous allotment.
The new members of the federation will include the eight Elite League clubs as well as newcomers the Guyana Futsal Association and the Guyana Beach Football Association.
The eight Elite League clubs which will be allowed to vote at GFF Congresses in the future are Alpha United, Slingerz FC, Pele FC, Georgetown Football Club, Guyana Defence Force, Monedderlust FC, Buxton United and Fruta Conquerors.
Similarly being amended was the voting count. Under the previous GFF constitution, each of the nine associations had two votes each while each affiliate had one vote apiece. This translated to 21 votes at the sitting of any congress.
With the increasing of the membership in the new constitution, each member will only be allowed one vote in the form of the entity’s President which equates to 22 votes.
