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Sunday, February 23, 2025

FIFA jurisdiction appeal decision on Friday

by

Derek Achong
1587 days ago
20201020
Chief Justice Ivor Archie

Chief Justice Ivor Archie

Chanice Gibbs

The Court of Ap­peal is sched­uled to de­ter­mine FI­FA's ap­peal, over High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in's de­ci­sion to hear a case brought by em­bat­tled T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his Unit­ed TTFA ex­ec­u­tive team, on Fri­day at 3 pm.

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and Ap­pel­late Judge Nolan Bereaux re­served their judge­ment on the ap­peal af­ter fin­ish­ing hear­ing sub­mis­sions from the two par­ties in a vir­tu­al hear­ing, this af­ter­noon.

In the ap­peal, the pan­el has been asked to de­ter­mine whether Gob­in had the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the case, which she even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed in Wal­lace and his team's favour, last week.

On Mon­day, FI­FA con­tend­ed that un­der its con­sti­tu­tion, the TTFA agreed to for­go lit­i­ga­tion in lo­cal courts in favour of ar­bi­tra­tion be­fore the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS).

It al­so con­tends that the Act of Par­lia­ment, which in­cor­po­rat­ed the TTFA, did not pre­clude it from choos­ing CAS over lo­cal courts in its con­sti­tu­tion.

The TTFA's lawyers have con­tend­ed that the con­sti­tu­tion could not oust the ju­ris­dic­tion of the lo­cal courts.

They al­so claimes that FI­FA frus­trat­ed their client's at­tempt to chal­lenge its (FI­FA) de­ci­sion to re­place them with a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee by re­fus­ing to pay its share of the 40,000 Swiss Francs re­quired for an ap­peal be­fore the CAS.

If FI­FA wins the ap­peal, Gob­in's rul­ing on the sub­stan­tive case would be­come null and void.

De­liv­er­ing her judge­ment in the case, last week, Gob­in ruled that FI­FA's move to ap­point a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee led by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad to re­place Wal­lace and his team was il­le­gal, null and void and of no ef­fect.

Gob­in said: "The Court de­clares that the de­ci­sion of the De­fen­dant dat­ed 17/3/20 to ap­point a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee was made in bad faith and for an im­prop­er and il­le­gal mo­tive."

She al­so ruled that FI­FA's Statutes which speak to the ap­point­ment of such com­mit­tees did not con­form with the lo­cal leg­is­la­tion which in­cor­po­rat­ed the TTFA and pre­scribes how it is gov­erned.

In her judge­ment, Gob­in con­sid­ered FI­FA's Statutes on the com­mit­tee which stat­ed that it is to be ap­point­ed to mem­ber fed­er­a­tions in "ex­tra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances".

"The rule es­sen­tial­ly gives FI­FA a free hand. The ab­sence of a de­f­i­n­i­tion does not how­ev­er lim­it my abil­i­ty to con­sid­er the cir­cum­stances of it and to de­ter­mine the law­ful­ness of FI­FA's ac­tions," she said.

"I have con­sid­ered the ev­i­dence and have come to the con­clu­sion that the de­ci­sion to in­voke the nor­mal­i­sa­tion was un­war­rant­ed and in­de­fen­si­ble," she added.

She said that FI­FA at­tempt­ed to usurp the pow­er of the lo­cal leg­is­la­tion by di­rect­ing the com­mit­tee to arrange fresh elec­tions.

She al­so took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cise FI­FA for its ap­par­ent dis­dain for the lo­cal courts through its ac­tions in re­peat­ed­ly re­fus­ing to recog­nise their ju­ris­dic­tion for cas­es with­in the coun­try.

"The de­fen­dant's con­duct re­gret­tably calls in­to ques­tion the sin­cer­i­ty of its vault­ed com­mit­ment to achiev­ing its ob­jec­tives to pro­mote in­tegri­ty, fair play, and friend­ly re­la­tions in so­ci­ety for hu­man­i­tar­i­an ob­jec­tives as well as its com­mit­ment to re­spect­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised hu­man rights and striv­ing to pro­tect them. Dis­re­gard for the rule of law is in­con­sis­tent with these ob­jec­tives," she said.

While Gob­in said she recog­nised the ef­fect of the case on the sport in this coun­try, she sug­gest­ed that it could be con­sid­ered war­rant­ed in the cir­cum­stances.

"The TTFA's ac­tions in seek­ing re­dress be­fore the Court was per­haps the on­ly ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponse which avoid­ed ca­pit­u­lat­ing to the de­mands of FI­FA and there­by el­e­vat­ing the sta­tus of FI­FA Stat­ues above the laws passed by our Par­lia­ment," Gob­in said.

Wal­lace and his col­leagues are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dr Emir Crowne, Matthew Gayle, Crys­tal Paul, and Ja­son Jones, while Christo­pher Hamel-Smith, Jonathan Walk­er and Cherie Gopie ap­peared for FI­FA.


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