On Saturday, they were the leaders from the Football Federation of Belize who joined with 3 district associations to form a quorum and hold an Extraordinary General Meeting. They elected a new executive, deposing president of the last 9 years Dr. Bertie Chimilio.
The new president is Ray Davis, and this morning he came to our studio to defend himself against Chimilio's dismissive remarks about him. Yesterday, Chimilio told us that the ejection was bogus as three suspended district associations had elected three suspended board members. Today Davis agreed that Chimilio had tried to suspend him, but when he did that, he went above his authority. Now, Davis says he has acted in strict accordance with FFB statutes to take control of the federation.
Ray Davis, President Elect of FFB
"People out there might feel that Dr. Chimilio is saying something and so it has to be the gospel. It is not gospel. The gospel is written here, the gospel is not uttered out of the mouth of anybody. It is written here.
If you listen to how Dr. Chimilio describes this organization, you would think that Dr. Chimilio is at the apex and everything else comes below. Nothing could be further from the truth; it is the opposite way around.
He has not the authority to suspend any association and to suspend the executive members. Suspension is not done by presidential decree, it is a process and he cannot suspend anybody according to the laws how it was written and according to the FIFA Code of Ethics. You cannot just suspend somebody right like that without following due process. In no way you can just suspend somebody on some allegation and they don't know what the infringement was. So that is utter foolishness. So we are not suspended.
Not because the President makes some declaration that means that that is what it is. There is no question as to whether or not I can preside at a meeting if the President is not here. That is in the constitution to ensure you have continuity if the president falls down on the street and can't attend a meeting football doesn't stop. If the president goes to Germany, football doesn't stop. And this is the kind of inferences that our past president, and he is in fact the past president, according to the statutes that we have."
Jules Vasquez,
But he is still in the office in Belmopan acting as the President and you are here. Is he holding onto the office by sheer force of will or force of his presence?
Ray Davis,
"The way we look at it is this: we have written Dr. Chimilio a letter to inform him what transpired at the meeting on Saturday the 26th of August. In that letter we outlined to him what the election process was and we told him that we wanted to meet with him at the building at 10 o'clock on Monday the 28th to start the handing over procedures. Now he was not there. We put our own locks on those doors. He has his locks there. If he breaches those locks, we are going to refer the matter to the authorities because it is out of our hands because he has been told, he has the information, everything is there. So it is really up to him.
In my mind the statutes have been violated so terribly. The code of conduct has been violated so terribly. This is one of the reasons we need to have the parent body to come here."
Well, be careful what you wish for, because that foreign body has spoken and emphatically in the favor of Chimilio. Jack Warner, the Vice-President of FIFA today sent Davis an email from his CONCACAF Office in Trinidad making it clear that he recognizes Chimilio as president. We note that Davis's comments were made before he received that e-mail. As for the new locks on the building put on by Davis and his executive, Chimilio told us that, acting on the advice of his attorney he did not go into the building today.
