Kei­th Clement and

Mark Bas­sant

The con­tro­ver­sial Home of Foot­ball, which was deemed un­us­able by for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent William Wal­lace back in No­vem­ber, is now one of the venues Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing for use as a step-down fa­cil­i­ty in the fight against the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) fol­low­ing a vis­it yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young led a par­ty of of­fi­cials from the Min­istries of Health, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fire Ser­vices and FI­FA Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee chair­man Robert Hadad on a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed this with Hadad late yes­ter­day and he re­vealed it was an op­tion be­ing con­sid­ered for a while.

“They (Gov­ern­ment) have been speak­ing to us and I sug­gest you speak with ei­ther Min­is­ter Young or Deyals­ingh for an up­date. They have to de­cide what they want to do,” Hadad said dur­ing a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with­out re­veal­ing any­thing fur­ther.

How­ev­er, sources told Guardian Me­dia the tour­ing team spent a con­sid­er­able amount of time at the fa­cil­i­ty.

“We are not sure what is go­ing to hap­pen at this point, but I know they are try­ing to get the nec­es­sary ap­provals,” a source fa­mil­iar with the tour ex­plained.

The source added that there were oth­er venues be­ing con­sid­ered for step-down fa­cil­i­ties by the Min­istry of Health. Be­fore the TTFA fa­cil­i­ty can be giv­en the green light to house re­cov­er­ing COVID pa­tients, it will have to meet the nec­es­sary re­quire­ments, the source added.

Last No­vem­ber, then new­ly-elect­ed TTFA pres­i­dent Wal­lace had said the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar fa­cil­i­ty was not fit for op­er­a­tions.

Wal­lace told Guardian Me­dia then, “There are two things. There are no Fire Ser­vice ap­provals and of course if it’s a place for the pub­lic you need li­a­bil­i­ty in­sur­ance, which you get when the build­ing is com­plet­ed. The build­ing is not com­plet­ed, there are still things to be done.”

On No­vem­ber 18 last year, the TTFA held a gala open­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the ho­tel which was at­tend­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and FI­FA pres­i­dent Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no and oth­er dig­ni­taries. How­ev­er, two days af­ter be­ing elect­ed as pres­i­dent of the TTFA, Wal­lace closed down the fa­cil­i­ty say­ing it was unin­sured and not cer­ti­fied by the Fire Ser­vice.

The Home of Foot­ball is a 72-room ho­tel which cost the TTFA an es­ti­mat­ed TT$16.85 mil­lion and sits on a 17.5-acre par­cel of land leased to the as­so­ci­a­tion by the Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, the is­sues sur­round­ing the clo­sure of the fa­cil­i­ty were said to be at the heart of FI­FA re­mov­ing Wal­lace and his three vice pres­i­dents, Clynt Tay­lor, Su­san Joseph-War­rick and Joseph Sam Phillip, from of­fice on March 17 and re­plac­ing them with the Hadeed-led Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee. Wal­lace and his team are now chal­leng­ing FI­FA’s de­ci­sion at the Court for Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) in Switzer­land.

On Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley toured the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre, which hous­es the coun­try’s na­tion­al ten­nis fa­cil­i­ty, along with Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh and Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram and de­clared it a step-down fa­cil­i­ty in the Gov­ern­ment’s fight against the nov­el coro­n­avirus. The Tacarigua fa­cil­i­ty will have a 50-bed ca­pac­i­ty. There is al­so a step-down fa­cil­i­ty at Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande.