Manning: I did not contest elections

Newspaper reports on Sunday stated that John whipped Manning 17-0 in a special meeting called specifically to elect a new board, a requirement of a recent agreement brokered by the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee.

Manning, son of Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who plays for North Zone side Sportsworld Straker Nets said he sent out documentation to the TTBBF stating his reluctance to contest the elections for a number of reasons.

He accused John of not honouring the agreement made between the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) and Manning’s supporters in the governing body. According to Manning the other reason was because a number of zones, which did not have basketball competitions this year, were deemed ineligible to vote.

Manning whose proposal for a first-time professional basketball league in Trinidad and Tobago is currently in a legal mire charged that the zones were considered ineligible to vote mere days before the elections.

“Don’t you consider that strange? In my whole life I have never been more surprised that a federation could be run the way this one is,” Manning said.

He said the NBFTT is not functioning as it should.

Manning said he wrote to the basketball federation and copied a letter to the (TTOC) last week stating that he was pulling out of the elections which had been stipulated by the TTOC.

“How can I be beaten if I did not take part in the election” Manning told Newsday over the weekend.

He also made it clear that from the time the basketball federation began circulating information about the elections, he had written to them asking them to count him out. Manning revealed that if all the zones which were expected to vote had done so, then the total would have been 49 and not 17, the margin John won by.

“Even unopposed John was only able to conjure up 17 votes out of the total of 49,” Manning claimed.

Newsday understands that the TTOC recommended that funds given by government to the federation be temporarily stopped pending the special meeting to elect the new executive.

The agreement came after John and two other officers were ousted at a meeting of the TTBBF which installed Manning as the president.

However this was challenged successfully by John and their other officials June Rogers (Vice-President Marketing and Communication) and Darrel Joseph (Assistant Secretary).