PNGRFL AGM called off

THE planned PNGRFL AGM which was to have taken place yesterday in Lae’s Melanesian Hotel was  called off midway through its motions after the league’s interim board chairman John Numapo was served  with a restraining order.
The court order prevents Numapo or any one else from acting on behalf of the PNGRFL in matters pertaining to meetings, its property or making decisions for the league.
Reports from Lae said Numapo had been served the  order earlier yesterday by an employee of a security firm but rejected it claiming he should have been served the previous day.
Members of the media were witness to the events which unfolded at the hotel.
The meeting which then began was interrupted shortly afterward as a local police officer delivered the paper in the second attempt.
It was then that Numapo, after consulting with the affiliates, dissolved the gathering.
Neither Numapo nor any party present at the meeting was prepared to comment, saying it was now a court matter.
Affiliates, mostly from the Highlands zone, keen on voting in new executives for the PNGRFL board, attended the meeting but were disappointed at the anti-climatic result.
Numapo and others will now have to wait until Feb 17 when the national court in Port Moresby makes a decision on the  case.
Days before the meeting PNGRFL chief operating officer Joe Tokam was adamant the meeting would go ahead as scheduled and advertised in both daily newspapers.
He said that until they were actually served it was business as usual.
Whether this was an attempt to call Bryan Kramer’s bluff is irrelevant as the court order now effectively means that he holds onto the chairman’s seat which he was elected to by the Momase and New Guinea Islands zone affiliates last November.
The crux of the issue according to Kramer is a failure to adhere to an August court order and the apparent circumvention of the PNGRFL constitution.
Meanwhile,  drawing from the recent announcement by Sports Minister Philemon Embel of government intervention into league, unconfirmed reports have also surfaced that the government could wade into the conflict with sources saying one prominent governor has already offered to be a mediator and has even invited Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare and other MPs to help solve the problem.