By Neto Baptiste
Antigua and Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA) member Teddy Daley has officially called on the body’s president, Everton Cornelius, to tender his resignation.
His call comes on the heels of the president’s appearance on the Good Morning Jojo sports show where Cornelius proclaimed that he had given executive members an opportunity to ask him to resign during a meeting last week and got no response.
“If you’re saying you asked that question, well my answer to that is yes, you should resign. If you love the sport, if you care about the athletes and after you would have brought the association and the sport into disrepute, damaged the relationship we would have had with our sponsors and supporters, if you don’t tender your resignation by the end of today [August 28], then you will get my resignation first thing tomorrow morning. We will use article 10 of the constitution to force a general meeting to move forward,” he said.
Daley, who was earmarked as coach/manager of the four-member team set to compete at the ongoing World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Lima, Peru, said he is flabbergasted by the Cornelius’ approach to the issue and promises to agitate for change.
“I’ve had enough, and the back and forth and nobody wanting to accept the blame for the things they did wrong has to stop. We need to move from here and go forward. I am not going to sit by and allow this to continue with the back and forth and people thinking they can just wait out the time and things continue as normal; that is not going to happen as long as I am part of the organisation,” he said.
Daley, a former national athlete, also called on the president to be a bit humbler, after asserting that Cornelius took credit for all the positive things that have happened during his tenure while shedding himself of responsibility or blame for the things perceived as negative.
“When he spoke of something positive like, ‘I got the track certified up at YASCO, I got seating up at YASCO, I got this and I got that’; but when the problem was addressed it was ‘them’ or ‘they’ or the ‘association’, and it wasn’t ‘I’ anymore because ‘I’ was only for the positive things.
“The president took no blame whatsoever, when only two persons could have made the registrations — which are the two persons who have access to the mailbox — and the president is one of those persons,” the official said.
Daley was one of the first members to speak publicly on the debacle, urging those in authority to address the nation. All of the athletes who were slated to attend the games are associated with the Power Speed Endurance (PSE) Track Club of which Daley is part owner and coach.
