Promoter demands refund from GFL
By Steve Ninvalle
Stabroek News
October 8, 2002
An aspiring football promoter is crying foul after money he said was handed over to the Georgetown Football League for the staging of a tournament was not refunded. President of Top Notch International Orin Battice stopped short of saying he was ripped off but said his company suffered major financial losses after entering into a deal with the GFL.
However, GFL general secretary Raol Johnson said that his organisation had not entered into any deal with Top Notch and owes the company nothing.
The knockout tournament, sponsored by Top Notch International was expected to kick off under floodlights in February and would have included the top eight teams from the last Kashif and Shanghai competition.
The first prize was expected to be above $300,000. Battice said that he held several meetings with GFL president Christopher Matthias and Treasurer Daune Campbell before it was decided that $110,000 should be turned over to the treasurer to pay for rental of the GFC ground where the tournament would have been staged.
Battice said the sum was handed over to Campbell in two parts ($60,000 and $50,000) in mid January but the tournament never came off and he has been given a marathon royal run around. Efforts to get a comment from Campbell yesterday proved futile.
Battice was later told that the money was already paid to the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) and he should check with that club for a refund.
But when contacted secretary of GFC Ivor O'Brien said that no money was received from GFL for the staging of the Top Notch tournament and added that GFL had only paid GFC money the sub-association had owed.
"Not one cent was lodged. We know nothing about Top Notch. I know that the GFL owed us money for rental and they paid us," the secretary said. O'Brien explained that the GFL frequently paid GFC with cheques which "bounced".
"Over a period of time they were paying us in cheques which were returned from the banks. We then insisted they pay in cash. The accumulative amount owed was around $120,000 and that was paid in cash. It was for past rental of our ground and had nothing to do with the staging of any Top Notch tournament," said O'Brien.
"I had to explain that we have no money holding for Top Notch," O'Brien added.
Adding a new twist to the issue Johnson claimed that the entire episode was a private arrangement, which fell through. Johnson said he only became aware of the tournament after Battice's request for a refund.
The secretary said that there was nothing official about the tournament.
"The GFL does not owe Top Notch any money as far as I'm concerned. "As the secretary of the GFL I was only made aware of that tournament when it was alleged that money needed to be refunded. As far as I'm concerned no formal letter was sent to enter into partnership with the GFL," Johnson declared.
In a letter to the GFL secretary and dated May 29 2002 Battice pleaded a return of the cash. The letter reads: You should be aware that in our bid to jointly host the "Best of the Best 2002 Floodlight Soccer Tournament with the Georgetown Football League in February 2002, the sum of one hundred and ten thousand dollars was given by Top Notch International to Ms. Daune Campbell (Treasurer ag.) of the League on 2002-01-20. For reasons beyond our control and better known by the GFL, this tournament has unfortunately not become a reality thus resulting in a tremendous loss of investment financially and otherwise by Top Notch International. In view of this we would be grateful if this sum could be returned in full on or before June 5, 2002. We would be grateful if this matter would be handled expeditiously and settled in an amicable manner," the letter ended.
"We were always dealing with the president and the treasurer and the tournament fell through after we handed over the money. I later went to check at GFC and was told that no money was lodged in our company's name. We gave them liquid cash," Battice said.
"We later had a meeting with Ms Campbell, Johnson and Christopher Matthias and they promised that we would get back the money but noting materialised," Battice stated.
Top Notch took its attempt to collect the funds one step further when a letter was dispatched to the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) on October 1.
GFF president Colin Klass confirmed receipt of the document but said that his organisation has similar cases to deal with and prefers to look at them simultaneously.
"We want to make sure that all are dealt with at one time," Klass said. He pointed out that in Top Notch's case the GFF was waiting for some executive of the GFL to certify that the letter was authentic.
"Once this is done then the GFF will reflect on its ability to make that refund," Klass said.
Obviously upset Battice said that if the money is not returned soon he will be calling on the long arm of the law. "We put a lot of trust in the GFL and now we are left with flat pockets." I'm not concerned with who resigned, I just want my money back. If I don't we'll all be heading up the court steps."