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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Cunupia FC withdraws lawsuit against TTFA

by

Derek Achong and Walter Alibey
1614 days ago
20201013
Matthew Gayle - One of the TTFA four lawyers

Matthew Gayle - One of the TTFA four lawyers

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

T&T Pro League out­fit Cunu­pia FC has de­cid­ed to for­go a law­suit against em­bat­tled T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his two re­main­ing vice pres­i­dents Clynt Tay­lor and Joseph Sam Phillips over their de­ci­sion to pur­sue their con­tro­ver­sial law­suit against FI­FA.

Guardian Me­dia Sports un­der­stand that lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the club Tues­day filed an ap­pli­ca­tion to with­draw the case, which was filed last week.

Af­ter a claim for $4.5 mil­lion in loss­es in­curred by the cen­tral club due to the un­want­ed le­gal ac­tions by Wal­lace and his team to chal­lenge the ap­point­ment of Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee by foot­ball's world gov­ern­ing body, Cunu­pia FC coach Michael Du Four said his team want­ed to send a strong mes­sage to the TTFA to drop its fight, as it was on­ly hurt­ing T&T foot­ball.

Du Four said: "The club ini­ti­at­ed this court ac­tion based on the ac­tions of the TTFA, which was re­al­ly meant to say the club dis­agrees with what they were do­ing. Cunu­pia FC is in­to the busi­ness of foot­ball and not go­ing to court. We with­drew the mat­ter be­cause we want foot­ball mat­ters to be set­tled on the field and not in the court­room. We al­so want these mat­ters to be set­tled am­i­ca­bly."

The Cunu­pia foot­ball boss told Guardian Me­dia Sports he has no de­sire in his club be­ing a cat­a­lyst for go­ing to court for foot­ball-re­lat­ed mat­ters, but rather be an ex­am­ple of mak­ing de­ci­sions in the in­ter­est of the sport and all in­volved in it, which is what he wants Wal­lace and his team of Tay­lor and Phillip to fol­low.

He jok­ing­ly said he prefers to see Cunu­pia FC take on a Wal­lace XI, fea­tur­ing Kei­th Look Loy, a Unit­ed TTFA founder, Tay­lor and Phillip in a post COVID-19 match at any venue.

In the orig­i­nal court fil­ings, the team's at­tor­ney Pe­ter Tay­lor said: "The De­fen­dants' ac­tions were gross­ly neg­li­gent, high­ly reck­less un­eth­i­cal and ir­re­spon­si­ble and with­out due re­gard to the statu­to­ry un­der­pin­ning which binds the ac­tions of the As­so­ci­a­tion since they knew or ought to have known that fail­ure to with­draw the ac­tion in the High Court would re­sult in the sus­pen­sion of T&T from all the at­ten­dant ad­verse con­se­quences flow­ing there from."

The club claimed that Wal­lace and his team went against the wish­es of the ma­jor­i­ty of its mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions, who vot­ed to with­draw the case, by with­draw­ing their with­draw­al ap­pli­ca­tion, which was filed past the dead­line, af­ter FI­FA an­nounced the TTFA's sus­pen­sion.

"The De­fen­dants' de­ci­sion not to obey the ma­jor­i­ty vote of its mem­ber­ship to with­draw­ing the High Court ac­tion is in­con­sis­tent with good ad­min­is­tra­tion," Tay­lor said.

It stat­ed that through the sus­pen­sion it would miss out on par­tic­i­pat­ing in re­gion­al club tour­na­ments and re­ceiv­ing cor­re­spond­ing fund­ing.

"The De­fen­dants' ac­tions will se­vere­ly ham­per the Claimant's de­vel­op­ment of it play­ers and staff for an in­def­i­nite pe­ri­od there­by oc­ca­sion­ing loss and dam­age," Tay­lor said.

Re­spond­ing to the case, Wal­lace's lawyer Matthew Gayle wrote to Tay­lor and sug­gest­ed that it be with­drawn as it was doomed to fail.

Gayle not­ed that his client was im­prop­er­ly served via What­sApp and was not giv­en a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter and al­lowed to re­spond.

Gayle ques­tioned why Tay­lor claimed that Wal­lace and his team in their per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty breached an al­leged con­trac­tu­al agree­ment with the club, when no such con­tract ex­ist­ed.

He al­so queried the club's claim that is spon­sor­ship and fund­ing is­sues were caused by Wal­lace and his team's on­go­ing case be­fore Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in.

"There is no nexus be­tween your client's pur­port­ed po­ten­tial and/or the­o­ret­i­cal fu­ture loss­es, which the claim com­pounds by right­ly and prop­er­ly recog­nis­ing my client as the 'du­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent'," Gayle said.

Gayle sug­gest­ed that the $4.5 mil­lion in Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate fund­ing claimed was not guar­an­teed as it was de­pen­dent on the team's qual­i­fi­ca­tion for re­gion­al club tour­na­ments.

"In any event, no cau­sa­tion is pred­i­cat­ed and the pur­port­ed po­ten­tial/an­tic­i­pat­ed loss­es are pred­i­cat­ed on the oc­cur­rence of sev­er­al events which ate yet to take place or may nev­er do," he said, as he sug­gest­ed that the case was based on spec­u­la­tion.

Gayle sug­gest­ed that the club take up its com­plaint with FI­FA for sus­pend­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion for nar­row­ly miss­ing its dead­line for with­draw­ing the case.

Gayle gave Tay­lor un­til Oc­to­ber 23 to with­draw the case be­fore he ap­plies for it to be struck out and for the club to pay its le­gal costs.

Du Four said his club will now have to ac­cept its loss­es and hope­ful­ly make it up when the lo­cal foot­ball sea­son re­sumes.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the with­draw­al comes on the day when Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in was set to de­liv­er her rul­ing on whether the ap­point­ment of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee by FI­FA is con­sid­ered le­git­i­mate or not.


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