Football Federation’s General Secretary challenged

General-secretary of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation (SVGFF), Devron Poyer, has been challenged by senior officials of some affiliates to explain a number of statements he made in a February 12, 2024, email sent to affiliates of the SVGFF.

In a Monday February 12, 2024, email general-secretary Poyer, stated that members will be eligible for voting in the upcoming (March 21, 2024) Congress as per the Statutes, namely Article 13.2.o; Article 16.a; Article 16.f; Article 26.1; and “Based on the extracted Articles stated above, the following Clubs are not allowed to participate in the upcoming Congress as members – Roseans FC, System 3, United Strikers FC.”

President of Kingstown Soccer League Camillo Samuel, who is also the general-secretary of Largo Height FC, responded in a Monday, February 12, 2024 email sent to the SVGFF general-secretary declaring “You need to withdraw yourself immediately as you are displaying a conflict of interest. You are the General Secretary of the SVGFF, yet you choose to campaign openly with the current second vice-president…”.

Samuel also claimed that Poyer has “a total disregard for democracy”.

Article 79 of the Transitional provisions, according to Samuel “gives one year to have all regulations be in place…”.

But, he contended that “the clubs you have listed in your email could not possibly be adjudicated to be in violation” as the officers responsible for tournaments, one of whom was the general secretary, “took over one year to finish a season”. Therefore the clubs were not afforded “the necessary window to secure their club license as no tournament, the one that would usually start in October of 2023 could not be contested because the 2022-2023 season was yet to be completed”.

Former SVGFF president and currently one of the persons contesting for the top Federation position, Marvin Fraser, also waded in via a February 13, 2024 email in which he said that the February 12, 2024 general secretary’s email “ is a clear contradiction of what was stated by the President Mr. Carl Dickson, and the Chairman of the Statutes Committee Mr. Marlon Stephenson, when we met to go through the newly adopted Statutes.”

He went on to outline what these persons explained “and based on the discussions, the World Governing Body (FIFA) decided and agreed that all members would remain as they are, and will be allowed to participate in this electoral congress. It was also stated that the matters of membership will come into effect for the next congress.”

Fraser added, “all these clubs that you are now removing their voting rights were all allowed to vote to pass the adoption of the new statutes … without their votes there would not have been a two thirds majority to have these said statutes passed. These statutes that are now being used to place them at a disadvantage…”.

After months of delays, the Federation, at an Extra-ordinary Congress held on February 5, 2024, granted an extension to the life of the current executive so that issues of new statutes and governance structures could be addressed. The affiliates are slated to meet on March 21, 2024, for their Congress at which a new executive will be elected to serve the SVGFF for the next four years.