Liberta Sports Club could be facing expulsion from Antigua and Barbuda’s Premier Division after failing to turn up for its first two matches this season in protest over concerns about the administration of that country’s football association.
The league resumed two weeks ago after a Covid-19 enforced two-and-a-half-year hiatus but the Rowan Benjamin-managed club has yet to show up for any of their two games against All Stars United and Ottos Rangers FC, respectively, which leaves it at the mercy of the ABFA Disciplinary Committee that will meet in the coming days.
According to Rohan Hector, the ABFA General Secretary, the teams that Liberta was scheduled to play will likely be awarded points and the club could face expulsion from the competition.
“Rule 5.11; if a team does not report for a match except in the case of force majeure recognized by the executive committee or if it refused to continue to play or leave the ground before the end of the match the team will be considered having lost the match and three points awarded to the opponent 3-0,” he said.
He added that the guilty team shall, as a general rule, be subjected to disciplinary action as recommended by the disciplinary committee, which may include exclusion from further participation in the competition.
Liberta, meanwhile, is sticking to its guns while expressing concern over issues which they say the administration has not addressed leading up to the start of the competition.
Among those issues of concern is the appointment of an interim president after the incumbent Everton Gonzales fell ill shortly after he was elected in April 2022. In a letter dated, November 6, 2022, obtained by Sportsmax.TV, President of Liberta Sports Club Kenny Benjamin raised the issue regarding Gonzales’ absence.
“On April 25th 2022 the Antigua and Barbuda FA held its elections where Mr Everton Gonzales was elected as president,” Benjamin stated in the letter.
“Within the same week it was learnt via a radio talk show host that the president had left the country to seek medical assistance. Even at this time of penning this letter there has not been any communique’ from the ABFA to member clubs as to the president’s illness or his whereabouts, the person deputizing for the president as stipulated in the constitution.
“This can be seen as gross disrespect to the clubs and largely, the general public.”
According to the former West Indies bowler, seeing that President Gonzales has been out of office for the last six months, the constitution dictates that if the president is absent or unavailable, the longest serving vice-president available shall deputize.
He continued stating that according to the constitution, if the president is permanently or temporarily prevented from performing his official functions, the longest serving vice-president shall represent him/her until the next Congress.
According to the Benjamin brothers, up to early last week, this matter has not been addressed and there has been no communication informing the clubs of the situation.
However, Hector explained that while President Gonzales is ailing, he is still functioning in that capacity.
“The president, upon on recognizing his illness and was going away for treatment, issued instruction to his executive on how they were to proceed in his absence,” Hector said.
“So, the president was not incapacitated to the point where he is not aware or has not been involved or been in touch or nor kept apprised of things going on. He is constantly in contact.
“Secondly, there was an update that was sent out to the membership yesterday (Sunday, December 4), that completely deals with that issue has been addressed.”
Player insurance was another issue raised by the Liberta manager.
In a letter dated November 22, Liberta President Kenny Benjamin fired off a letter to the FA inquiring about insurance for players for the coming season.
“Liberta Sports Club is concerned about its members participating in the ABFA’s Premier Division and not been clear about insurance of the players,” the letter stated.
“We are therefore requesting all information and details about the insurance be available to the team manager Mrs. Diane Anthony before our team PIC Black Hawks participation.”
The club manager cited an incident from 2019 when a Liberta player lost a tooth during a match and the club was forced to spend approximately EC$12,000 or about USD$4000 in medical expenses, funds that took the FA some time to refund.
Hector debunked those assertions, stating that the FA paid directly for the cost of getting the player’s tooth repaired. In fact, the general secretary said, the invoice for the player’s dental care was generated on February 26, 2019 and the cheque for said amount was paid on March 3, 2019, less than a week later.
“The ABFA paid the dental surgeon directly to repair the young man’s injuries so this notion there was a reimbursement was completely untrue,” Hector said.
Regarding the wider issue of insurance for the players for the season, Hector explained that the FA has engaged a new insurance company that will provide even more robust coverage for players, coaches and team personnel for the 2022/2023 season.
In response, the FA sent out a form requesting individual player contact information in a bid to speed up the process of getting everyone insured, Hector explained.
He said what would usually happen is that each club would forward each player’s name using their club’s contact information. However, with the new insurer, the coverage required contact information for each individual player. As such, the FA sent out forms to the clubs requesting said information for each individual player.
“We did not want to slow down the process,” said Hector, who noted that of 43 club teams playing football in Antigua, Liberta was the only club holding out at the start of the new season.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank the other 42 teams for returning Antigua and Barbuda football after a lay-off of two and a half years, to not wonderful support from not only the clubs but also the fans who have turned out in massive numbers to support football in 2022/2023.”
Leighton Levy is a journalist with 28 years’ experience covering crime, entertainment, and sports. He joined the staff at SportsMax.TV as a content editor two years ago and is enjoying the experience of developing sports content and new ideas. At SportsMax.tv he is pursuing his true passion - sports.
'Bunny' Shaw is Manchester City Women's Player of the Season, misses out on WSL Golden Boot
Reggae Girlz captain, Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw has won the award for Manchester City Women’s Player of the Season, having come out on top in a fan vote.
Shaw, in her second season for Manchester City Women, scored 31 goals in all competitions, surpassing the record for the most goals by a Women’s player across a single season. She also claimed the WSL Player of the Month awards in November and March and received the Goal of the Season prize for her strike against Arsenal in April 2023.
Shaw, who scored twice in Manchester City Women's 3-2 win over Everton on Saturday's final day of the season, did miss out on the Women’s Super League Golden Boot having bagged 20 league goals, two shy of Aston Villa’s Rachel Daley’s 22. Daley scored in Aston Villa's 2-0 win over Arsenal.
Manchester City Women finished fourth in the WSL on 47 points behind winners Chelsea Women who amassed 58 points from their 22 games. Manchester United Women finished second with 56 points. Arsenal Women were third on 47 points, the same as Manchester City Women, who lost their first two games of the season before going on a 16-game unbeaten run.
However, the Cityzens lost three of their last six games and fell out of the running for the title. They finished with a record of 15 wins, two draws and five losses.
Ange Postecoglou knows all about the expectation at Celtic
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou believes his players have become conditioned to the constant demands for success.
Captain Callum McGregor lifted the cinch Premiership trophy on Saturday after a 5-0 win over Aberdeen rounded off a season in which Celtic collected 99 points and scored a post-war club-record 114 league goals.
Postecoglou has now claimed four of five domestic trophies available since arriving from Japan in the summer of 2021 and he can follow in the footsteps of Jock Stein, Martin O’Neill, Brendan Rodgers and Neil Lennon by clinching the treble with Scottish Cup victory over Inverness on Saturday.
“From the moment I arrived, I think I have said many times, coming off a trophyless season, we could not go another year without winning something,” he said.
“From the first day I arrived, irrespective of what happened at the start of the season, I made it clear to the boys that expectation is always there.
“That will never change. Whether you are winning or not winning, expectation at this football club is you have success every year.
“I think the players have become conditioned to that. They train like that every day, they behave like that. Callum is pushing them like that every day. You can’t have an off day. You can’t have an off season.”
Postecoglou is already thinking about how he can improve Celtic next season.
“You can’t stand still in this game,” he said. “It changes very quickly. It’s fine margins between having success again and not being successful.
“And more than that, this team’s going to improve. Most of the key players in this team, you can see them improving.
“All the the ones who joined last year have had better years this year than last year, and the ones who stayed, Callum and Greg Taylor and Tony Ralston, all those guys, have all come on, and had better years this year.
“That tells me there’s more improvement. There has to be.”
Aberdeen manager Barry Robson will try to make sure his side compete better with Celtic next season but he sensed Saturday’s game would be difficult given the occasion and the fact his side had achieved their goal of finishing third in the league three days earlier.
Robson, whose side will be guaranteed European group stage football if Celtic win the cup, said: “We’re going to try our best in every department and be as good as we can possibly be.
“We know the differences in finance between teams in the league.
“I’ve played for teams challenging the Old Firm and I’ve played for the Old Firm myself, so I know how difficult it is.
“But we need to be as good an Aberdeen team as we can be, which we’ve done, and also perform well in Europe.
“We need Celtic to do us a turn at Hampden next week.
“That wasn’t our fight. Our fight was getting to third. But we want to make it a fight.”
Darren Moore wants Wednesday to embrace the moment in Wembley showdown
Sheffield Wednesday manager Darren Moore has urged his side to “embrace the moment” as the build-up to their Sky Bet League One play-off final continues.
The Owls reached Monday’s final in dramatic circumstances following a remarkable comeback against Peterborough in the semi-final, which saw them overturn a four-goal deficit in the first leg to then win 5-3 on penalties.
Their victory sets up a clash against Barnsley at Wembley with promotion to the Championship the prize and Moore is looking forward to the occasion between the South Yorkshire rivals.
He told a pre-match press conference: “Having two clubs so close together, it’s a Wembley final, two teams from Yorkshire competing for that final spot to get up into the Championship, it bodes well for a wonderful game.
“We’re just focusing on the game, focusing on the here and now and we’re looking forward to it.
“Like I said to the players, we’re to embrace this moment, embrace this time, because you’re embracing the moment in time not on your own.
“We have a multitude – an army – of fans with us as well as the staff, the players…it’s a oneness that we’ve always maintained throughout the season and that’s what we’ll see on Monday.”
Moore also recognised how special it is to play at Wembley, but stressed that he is preparing for it like “a normal game”.
“These times now are to be enjoyed, embraced, remember these times because they are special times,” he added.
“I said the beautiful thing about this for the players is you don’t stand there alone, I don’t have this as a lone figure as a manager because I feel I have a multitude that is with me.
“Players, staff, we’re all in it together, so we’re all approaching this together.
“My message has always been clear…to embrace this moment, enjoy the moment and within the club internally we’ve been planning and preparing as we would for a normal game.
“The game will quickly be upon us on Monday where we’ll get to compete and contest.”
The Tykes earned a league double over the Owls in the regular season for the first time since 2009, winning 2-0 at Hillsborough in September before securing a 4-2 win in the reverse fixture in March.
Despite Barnsley’s winning record against them this season, Moore is only focused on what is at stake on Monday.
“For me now what’s gone on has gone on before, we forget those things now and we focus on the here and now, the present.
“That’s what it is because the reason why the game’s being played at Wembley, it’s a final, the arena’s different, the atmosphere’s different, the mental side is different so it’s the here and now moment to deal with the games.”
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