RE: AFA’S FAILURE TO INVITE KICKS UNITED FC TO ANNUAL AGM

Mr President let me thank you first of all for confirming my allegation that KICKS UNITED FC were in fact deliberately not invited to the AFA’s 2010 AGM since, as you claimed in your letter, “Kicks United FC is not a member of the Anguilla Football Association”.

Your response to my letter, however, Mr President, was riddled with misstatements and unsubstantiated claims which I am reluctant to believe you did not know were untrue.

KICKS UNITED came into being in 2005 and was recognized by the AFA since that time as an Associate Member of the AFA as provided for in the AFA Statutes (Article X § 10.2 [b] [iii]). We have in our possession several bits of correspondence acknowledging that fact as well. It was, therefore, shocking to read your claim that (1) “Kicks United FC is not a member of the Anguilla Football Association” and that (2) “the AFA does not have Associate Members” You have to know Mr President that these claims are untrue since your records will show otherwise.

In response to a letter in which we inquired about how we could have our membership upgraded to Full Membership, General Secretary Mr Damien Hughes in a correspondence to our organization dated as 28 May 2009 stated in part, “Consequently, KUFC’s membership will remain that of Associate Member of the Association until such time that the Executive Committee receives proof that the situation as explained above has been changed.” There was never any question of our membership in the Association having expired thus requiring an extension, so how then did we cease to be a member albeit an Associate Member of the AFA? Additionally, your referencing a correspondence in your letter dated sometime in 2009 was deliberately misleading.

In your response letter you made very serious and erroneous allegations that as Manager of the National Team not only did I speak negatively about the said Team that I managed but that I “even proposed replacing it with ineligible, non- national players from Kicks United FC”. Mr Guishard are you serious? You know fully well that as Team Manager I had no say absolutely when it came to the composition of the team; that was strictly the purview of the Team Coach who at the time was Mr Vernon Hodge, so you ought to have known that this allegation was entirely false. I, therefore, challenge you to provide the corroborative evidence supporting your claim. I suggest to you further, Mr President, that you read and reread every document that you write or that is placed before you before affixing your signature if you are not to be made to look foolish.

Another serious allegation made in the letter signed by you, sir, was that I did not even know that the “General Secretary is not an elected member” of the Executive Committee. Mr President, you are really clutching at straws here; on what basis do you make that claim? Nowhere in my letter to you did I suggest, infer or insinuate this. Again, go back and read the letter, Mr President, and I would further suggest that you seek to always remember what you purported I did not know, that is, that you were elected to lead not to be led.

I believe you mean well but you perhaps need to review the advice you get from those closest to you. And in closing, your attack on the non-Anguillian players who participate in the local football league was unwarranted and was in very poor taste. This was never an issue between Anguillians and non-Anguillians Mr President and, truth be told, without them you would not have much of a league. Neither Kicks United FC nor I am interested in any rights to which we are not entitled; in fact I acknowledged in my letter that we did not have the right to vote within the organization. On another note, I have always lamented the condescending tone of correspondences coming out of the AFA, and again you did not disappoint. I really hope the general public was not fooled into believing anything to be true that was not so, and I wish to close Mr President with the admonition offered earlier in this correspondence, insisting that you read and reread every document put before you carefully before you sign it.

Fraternally

Bernard B Wattley
KICKS UNITED FC
cc: Mr Jack Warner/President CFU, CONCACAF & Vice president FIFA; FIFA Headquarters, The Media

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