THE BARBADOS FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (BFA) is being thrown into turmoil with its top two officials at loggerheads.
General secretary Chris Graham has threatened to file a complaint with the police against president Randy Harris following an alleged altercation at the BFA offices yesterday when Harris tried to fire Graham.
News of the incident broke just one day after Thursday’s BFA council meeting came to an abrupt end with another heated exchange between Harris and one of his council members.
The top brass seemingly have been at odds for a while following some differences of opinion over governance, policies and other in-house football matters.
But the situation apparently came to a head yesterday when Harris attempted to permanently relieve Graham of his duties after failing to get the council to rule on dismissing the general secretary at Thursday’s meeting.
The 36-year-old Graham said he was called into a meeting with the president, who told him he was fired in the presence of three senior council members before requesting that Graham return the office’s laptop.
But according to Graham, the situation turned ugly when Harris grabbed him by the wrist when he refused to hand in the laptop or accept the dismissal.
Graham went on to report that he was restrained by those other council members as Harris went through his personal bag to remove the laptop.
“I would not expect such behaviour from a leader,” said Graham in an interview with SUNSPORT at the BFA offices in Fontabelle moments after the altercation.
“At the end of the day, we should be focused on football and its development. So persons should not take it personal and come with a confrontational style of leadership. [But] when persons hold things in their heart, then they can become [difficult], but that type of behaviour is not good for football and then it is football that ends up suffering.
“Other than that, as a professional, I think you should be able to sit down, talk things through and work it out. You cannot agree with people all of the time. You have to have your own opinions.
“So I think because I am independent, I may come across as a threat [to him],” he added.
Harris, who brought on Graham just last October, declined to comment on the situation other than to say that there was no turmoil at the BFA. However, the president was clearly heard asking Graham to leave the premises after the latter conducted the interview.
NATIONSPORT?understands that when police arrived, the two agreed to part ways amicably.
