Derek Achong

For­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his team have se­cured an in­junc­tion block­ing an ex­tra­or­di­nary gen­er­al meet­ing of the as­so­ci­a­tion's mem­bers, which was sched­uled for Tues­day.

The in­junc­tion was grant­ed by High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in on Mon­day as a law­suit brought by Wal­lace and his team against FI­FA, over their re­moval and re­place­ment by a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee led by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, came up for vir­tu­al hear­ing.

Pre­sent­ing the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion, Wal­lace's lawyer Matthew Gayle claimed that the meet­ing, which was req­ui­si­tioned by T&TFA mem­ber­ship and fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the com­mit­tee, would have sought to chal­lenge their au­thor­i­ty to bring the claim and have it with­drawn.

Gayle sug­gest­ed that un­der the TTFA's con­sti­tu­tion, it was elect­ed mem­bers such as Wal­lace and his team who were re­quired to call the meet­ing up­on req­ui­si­tion and that the com­mit­tee, as FI­FA del­e­gates, could on­ly act on it if they had not with­in 30 days.

Gayle sug­gest­ed that the meet­ing was set be­fore the dead­line had elapsed and was seek­ing to usurp the func­tions of the court.

The ap­pli­ca­tion was not op­posed by Se­nior Coun­sel Christo­pher Hamel-Smith, who led for FI­FA and by ex­ten­sion the com­mit­tee's le­gal team.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Hamel-Smith ap­plied for a stay of the pro­ceed­ings pend­ing his client's ap­peal over Gob­in's de­ci­sion to refuse its bid to have the case dis­missed over a lack of ju­ris­dic­tion.

FI­FA had claimed that by virtue of TTFA's mem­ber­ship with it and un­der the pro­vi­sions of its con­sti­tu­tion, it (TTFA) had agreed to for­go lit­i­ga­tion in lo­cal courts in favour of pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS), which, like FI­FA, is based in Switzer­land.

Hamel-Smith not­ed that his client is main­tain­ing its po­si­tion and that by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­tin­ued case be­fore her, through fil­ing a de­fence, may com­pro­mise it.

Gob­in dis­agreed, as she not­ed her di­rec­tions for the case to be de­ter­mined ex­pe­di­tious­ly while the ap­peal was be­ing pur­sued were not ap­pealed and were still valid.

Gob­in stat­ed that FI­FA would not be prej­u­diced, as any de­ci­sion made by her in the case may be ren­dered null and void if the Court of Ap­peal dis­agrees with her rul­ing when it hears the ap­peal on Oc­to­ber 21. She al­so ques­tioned if FI­FA was em­ploy­ing time-wast­ing tac­tics.

"Is it that your client is play­ing for ex­tra time?" Gob­in said.

In re­ject­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion, Gob­in ex­tend­ed the time for FI­FA to file its de­fence to Fri­day, as it had missed its orig­i­nal dead­line of Sep­tem­ber 4. She al­so set a ten­ta­tive tri­al date of Oc­to­ber 9 in the event the de­fence is not filed and a cor­re­spond­ing re­ply is not re­quired.