Two weeks af­ter for­mer na­tion­al play­er Rus­sell Lat­apy de­mand­ed from the T&TFA his US$6 mil­lion owed to him since 2009, an­oth­er for­mer na­tion­al foot­ball coach Stephen Hart has de­mand­ed that the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pay him the US$742,444 (TT$5 mil­lion) in un­paid salary and ben­e­fits from his three-year stint in charge of the se­nior men's team by May 9. 

In a let­ter sent to TTFA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ramesh Ramd­han on Mon­day, Hart's lawyer Kei­th Scot­land in­di­cat­ed that his client in­tends to levy against the cash-strapped as­so­ci­a­tion in the event that it fails to meet the dead­line. 

The let­ter comes oust­ed TTFA ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers in­clud­ing for­mer pres­i­dent William Wal­lace are cur­rent­ly en­gaged in pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) over FI­FA's de­ci­sion to re­move them from of­fice and ap­point a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee chaired by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad. 

The for­mer ex­ec­u­tive is al­so still cur­rent­ly en­gaged in le­gal dis­cus­sions with the as­so­ci­a­tion's bank First Cit­i­zens Bank over con­trol of its ac­counts. 

In his law­suit brought against the TTFA, Hart on­ly sought to re­coup his salary and ben­e­fits un­der his con­tracts and not ad­di­tion­al dam­ages for the TTFA's con­duct in his case. 

Ac­cord­ing to his case state­ment, Hart was not paid his US$20,000 per month salary from Sep­tem­ber to Oc­to­ber 2015 and from Sep­tem­ber to No­vem­ber 2016. 

Hart, who cur­rent­ly coach­es Hal­i­fax Wan­der­ers in Cana­da, al­so claimed for the US$25,000 per month salary, he would have earned be­tween De­cem­ber 2016 and De­cem­ber 2018, if his con­tract was not ter­mi­nat­ed in No­vem­ber 2016. 

His lawyers con­tend­ed that he was en­ti­tled to the pay­ment as he was wrong­ful­ly ter­mi­nat­ed with­out rea­sons be­ing giv­en.

In ad­di­tion to the US$10,000 bonus for lead­ing the team to the hexag­o­nal stage of Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion, Hart al­so claimed for US$7,444 in trav­el, food, and bag­gage ex­pens­es he in­curred be­tween 2015 and 2016. 

In No­vem­ber, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well grant­ed Hart a de­fault judge­ment against the TTFA af­ter it failed to reg­is­ter a de­fence to his claim. 

The out­come came two months af­ter for­mer TTFA tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor Kendal Walkes won his US$783,000 over be­ing wrong­ful­ly dis­missed by for­mer TTFA pres­i­dent David John-Williams and the as­so­ci­a­tion's ex­ec­u­tive in March 2016. 

Sim­i­lar law­suits, al­beit for less­er com­pen­sa­tion, have been al­so won by the as­so­ci­a­tion's for­mer tech­ni­cal staff over the past few years. The as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so faced lit­i­ga­tion from sup­pli­ers over un­paid bills for goods and ser­vices pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed. 

Hart, a for­mer na­tion­al play­er, was head coach of the Cana­di­an na­tion­al team be­fore tak­ing over the lo­cal job in June 2013. He led the team in two rel­a­tive­ly suc­cess­ful Gold Cup cam­paigns in 2013 and 2015, where the team made it to the knock out stage on both oc­ca­sions. 

Hart was even­tu­al­ly sacked af­ter T&T was elim­i­nat­ed from the fi­nal round of qual­i­fy­ing for the 2018 World Cup in Rus­sia. At the time his record was 16 wins, 12 draws and 15 loss­es in 43 match­es.