Shymdeo Gosine, president of the Central Football Association (CFA), has come out in support of the FIFA’s Normalisation Committee running the affairs of T&T football.
The Central businessman, who has made an immediate impact with his involvement into the sport a few years ago at the CFA level, told Guardian Media Sports on Tuesday he believes the ousted executives of former president William Wallace and vice presidents Susan Joseph-Warrick, Sam Phillip and Clynt Taylor, who is the general secretary at the CFA, will not receive any support from the people of T&T to accumulate the money needed to attempt to convince the world governing body for football, FIFA, to rescind its decision to implement a normalisation committee to govern local football.
“Just watch and you will see for yourself, they will not get any support,” Gosine said.
The disbanded executives of the TTFA, through former president Wallace on Monday, issued a release to the media confirming their decision to fight against what they consider to be injustice and unfairness by the FIFA through the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in Lausanne Switzerland.
Wallace and his vice president estimated that they will need between $300,000 to $500,000 for their Attorneys Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew Gayle to fight the case and is calling on members of the public to give generously via its website (TTFAFights).
FIFA, on March 17, agreed to appoint a normalisation committee in charge of local football, believing the then Wallace-led TTFA which had been in office less than three months, was facing insolvency due to a claim by the former executive of a debt of approximately $50 million which it inherited from previous administrations. But despite attempts to prevent the FIFA from going through with its plan, the sport’s governing body ignored a plight from the TTFA and appointed the members of the normalisation committee, which comprises of businessman and chairman Robert Hadad who is a director of the HADCO Group of Companies, his deputy Judy Daniels who is a specialist in Environment Law and banker Nigel Romano, an executive and partner of Moore T&T.
In a release, FIFA also explained that two other members of the committee will be chosen over the coming days, after consultation with the CONCACAF.
Yesterday, Gosine said he believes the Wallace-led administration may have blundered by its decision to close the now controversial Home of Football which FIFA itself had approved.
“That was probably one of the many mistakes that were made by the members of that administration, none of whom attended the grand opening of the facility in Balmain, Couva, and featured Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, CONCACAF president Victor Mantagliani and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, among many others. The Home of Football was built to generate income but the Wallace administration closed it and had no revenue streams but the FIFA,” Gosine said.
According to the central football boss, the TTFA later made several appointments with no money to pay them while promises of lucrative contracts to help the sport have never materialised. Gosine said he doesn’t know if the Wallace-led administration at the time had the capabilities to run the affairs of local football.
He said, "I, the President of the Central Football Association, want to welcome the decision made by FIFA to put a normalizing committee in place to regularize our football. The proclamation made by the team that was given the mandate had too many pies in the sky."
Gosine who contested the November 24, 2019, TTFA election as a vice president on the slate of Richard Ferguson, believes FIFA is the best choice to revive local football, saying after the two years, Wallace and is members can decide to re-contest the elections for a second time, and might just be in a better position to run the sport. Quizzed as to whether he will consider contesting elections when it is called, Gosine said he could not answer that at present but he does feel that he has a lot to offer T&T football still.
Meanwhile, the T&T Pro League is also in support of FIFA's decision, while the T&T Super League, the North Zone, T&T Football Referees Association (T&TFRA) and the T&T American Youth Soccer Organisation have thrown their support behind the former President.