MEMBERS OF the sacked executive of the TTFA (TT Football Association) – president William Wallace and his deputies Clynt Taylor, Susan Joseph-Warrick and Joseph Sam Phillip – will be filing their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), as they try to thwart FIFA’s running of the local governing body.
FIFA implemented a normalisation committee, headed by local businessman Robert Hadad, on March 17 and replaced the TTFA’s board, on the basis of mounting debts and financial mismanagement.
Wallace, who took over from David John-Williams as TTFA president on November 24, 2019, is using the legal team of Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew Gayle to fight his group’s battle against the global governing body.
On Monday, Gayle said, “The necessary fee to CAS has been paid and the statement of appeal will be filed (by Tuesday).”
The fee, which is required to lodge the complaint to CAS, is 1,000 Swiss francs (TT $7,000).
There has been public debate over whether or not Wallace and his team will be successful in their legal venture, but Gayle said, “Our view is that the normalisation committee has no legitimacy. There is no basis in law for FIFA or any other external body to interfere with the day-to-day running of the TTFA. That’s really where we’re at.
“Nothing has changed in that regard, notwithstanding the fact that FIFA purports to have appointed some of the members of the normalisation committee. Even the appointment of the normalisation committee has not been in keeping with FIFA’s own statutes.” Gayle mentioned, “Statute 8.2 of the FIFA’s statutes sets out when you can appoint a normalisation committee and how a normalisation committee can be appointed. It hasn’t complied with what 8.2 says.”
According to article 8.2 of FIFA’s constitution, “Executive bodies of member associations may, under exceptional circumstances, be removed from office by the Council in consultation with the relevant confederation and replaced by a normalisation committee for a specific period of time.”
Gayle said, “More fundamentally than that, is the normalisation committee is purported to be the base in the running of a sovereign body which, quite frankly, it can’t do without the acquiesce of a sovereign body.