WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Sports Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

More than three years af­ter the world’s gov­ern­ing au­thor­i­ty for foot­ball, FI­FA was forced to step in and at­tempt to ‘nor­malise’ the op­er­a­tions of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), the very body ap­point­ed with that task could them­selves be head­ing to the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) and very soon.

Back in 2020, a FI­FA-led in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties found that the TTFA had “ex­treme­ly low over­all fi­nan­cial man­age­ment meth­ods and to­geth­er with its mas­sive debt, the was fac­ing a very re­al risk of in­sol­ven­cy and illiq­uid­i­ty.

These find­ings led to the sus­pen­sion of the then-elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive and the ap­point­ment of an in­de­pen­dent nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee in March 2020, a firm re­quire­ment if T&T were to be al­lowed to com­pete in FI­FA-sanc­tioned com­pe­ti­tions and con­tin­ue to re­ceive the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s fund­ing.

The Robert Hadad-led nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, which has been in charge of lo­cal foot­ball since, was ap­point­ed with a clear un­der­stand­ing that con­trol of foot­ball was to be re­turned to a du­ly elect­ed lo­cal ex­ec­u­tive af­ter a clear­ly de­fined FI­FA man­date was ful­filled, which in­clud­ed amend­ments to the TTFA con­sti­tu­tion.

How­ev­er, re­ports reach­ing Guardian Me­dia Sports say that sev­er­al clubs, led by Sel­by Browne, pres­i­dent of the Vet­er­an Foot­ballers Foun­da­tion of T&T (VF­FOTT) could be look­ing to drag the FI­FA-ap­point­ed nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee be­fore CAS as they seek to over­turn sev­er­al re­cent de­ci­sions that in his opin­ion, are be­ing im­posed on mem­ber clubs of the TTFA.

On Au­gust 20, TTFA’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Amiel Mo­hammed is­sued a let­ter to mem­bers stat­ing that the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee has worked on the amend­ments to the TTFA con­sti­tu­tion as has been man­dat­ed by FI­FA to get lo­cal foot­ball back on track stat­ing:

“Pur­suant to the com­mu­ni­ca­tion shared in Ju­ly 2023 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, it was in­di­cat­ed that the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee has worked on the amend­ments to the TTFA Con­sti­tu­tion (Statutes) with FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF. Pro­posed amend­ments were shared with FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF for their feed­back at that time, not­ing that the req­ui­site per­son­nel in FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF would be en­gaged in a very ac­tive Au­gust 2023 pe­ri­od which in­clud­ed the 2023 FI­FA Women’s World Cup in Aus­tralia and New Zealand.

“In con­sul­ta­tion with our col­leagues in FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF, the fol­low­ing time­line has been tar­get­ed re­gard­ing this mat­ter: Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee to meet with FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF in ear­ly Oc­to­ber 2023 at FI­FA For­ward Work­shop to fi­nalise pro­pos­al of Statutes; Pro­posed Statutes to be shared with TTFA Mem­bers by the end of Oc­to­ber 2023.”

It al­so stat­ed: “Con­sul­ta­tion dis­cus­sions led by FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF with TTFA mem­bers to be held in No­vem­ber 2023. Con­ven­ing of a gen­er­al meet­ing to ap­prove statutes in De­cem­ber 2023, be­fore pro­ceed­ing to TTFA elec­tions by mid-March 2024, but not be­fore the mem­bers ap­proved of the changes to con­sti­tu­tion­al (statutes) - slat­ed to be the sec­ond-to-last thing to be com­plet­ed by the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, to ac­com­plish their man­date.”

In ad­di­tion to the re­lease, Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia Sports that mem­bers will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss their thoughts with the TTFA and CON­CA­CAF on the pro­posed changes be­fore the list­ed time­lines.

Yes­ter­day though, Browne called on the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to not link the elec­tion with the amend­ments to the con­sti­tu­tion, say­ing the com­mit­tee al­ready had over three years to com­plete every­thing.

In re­spond­ing al­most im­me­di­ate­ly to the TTFA let­ter Browne said, “Let me first state that VF­FOTT and oth­er mem­bers of the TTFA re­ject in the strongest man­ner the an­nounce­ments and time­line stat­ed above, and con­sid­er as to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able, any such at­tempt to link ap­proval of the amend­ments to the TTFA Con­sti­tu­tion (Statutes) with the date set for ter­mi­na­tion of the term of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, March 2024.

“The above there­fore puts to non­sense, the friv­o­lous pro­nounce­ments ad­vanced, for not hav­ing the pro­posed amend­ments to the TTFA Con­sti­tu­tion (Statutes) pre­sent­ed to the TTFA con­gress for the past three-years and six-month pe­ri­od.”

He added, “Fur­ther, it has now be­come nec­es­sary to seek le­gal an­swers to the po­si­tion held by VF­FOTT and oth­er TTFA mem­bers that ap­proval of any amend­ments to the TTFA Statutes (and oth­er reg­u­la­tions where nec­es­sary) by the TTFA Con­gress and must now seek to be rushed as a pre­req­ui­site for the com­ple­tion of item four of the man­date: - to or­gan­ise and to con­duct elec­tions of a new TTFA Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee for a four-year man­date.”

Browne, who al­so made it pub­lic his in­ten­tion to be among the mem­bers that will be con­test­ing the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent when the elec­tion bell is rung, said the VF­FOTT and oth­er TTFA mem­bers are of the view that ap­proval of any amend­ments to the TTFA Statutes (and oth­er reg­u­la­tions where nec­es­sary) should now be­come the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of new TTFA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee when elect­ed for their four-year man­date.

“The an­swers to both these mat­ters are now im­me­di­ate and ur­gent and shall be sought through le­gal ar­bi­tra­tion, giv­en the need to en­sure the term of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee comes to an end in March 2024, af­ter year four, of what was sup­posed to be a two-year man­date.

“We trust FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF would agree with VF­FOTT and the TTFA mem­ber­ship, that tak­ing this ac­tion now may be con­sid­ered crit­i­cal and nec­es­sary to fa­cil­i­tate bring­ing the work of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to a close in March 2024,” he said.

Mean­while, the an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of the TTFA that was sched­uled to be held on Sat­ur­day at the as­so­ci­a­tion’s home in Bal­main, Cou­va, was ad­journed un­til Oc­to­ber 14 as Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that of the 48 recog­nised mem­bers, on­ly 16 showed up and this was eight short of the 24 mem­bers re­quired to form a quo­rum for the meet­ing to pro­ceed.