With the coun­try still try­ing to di­gest FI­FA's de­ci­sion to sus­pend the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) un­til fur­ther no­tice on Thurs­day and the res­ig­na­tion of TTFA sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent Su­san Joseph-War­rick, the five re­main­ing Unit­ed TTFA mem­bers on Fri­day de­cid­ed to con­tin­ue their le­gal bat­tle against the world gov­ern­ing body in the T&T High court.

At 7.38 am Fri­day, the Unit­ed TTFA served a "No­tice of With­draw­al" of the ap­pli­ca­tion it made on Wednes­day to with­draw its ini­tial court mat­ter against FI­FA in an at­tempt to meet FI­FA's ul­ti­ma­tum. The new po­si­tion means that the mat­ter will pro­ceed as stat­ed on Oc­to­ber 9 be­fore Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in.

The Unit­ed TTFA team al­so filed an ap­pli­ca­tion with the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, seek­ing a stay of FI­FA's de­ci­sion to sus­pend the TTFA on Thurs­day. The case, CAS#7411/A Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion v FI­FA, is ex­pect­ed to be heard some­time with­in the next two days.

The re­sponse from CAS states: "Pur­suant to Ar­ti­cle R37 of the Code, FI­FA is in­vit­ed to sub­mit its po­si­tion on the Ap­pli­cant's ap­pli­ca­tion for a stay by 28 Sep­tem­ber 2020 at 10h00 (CET), which shall be sent to pro­ce­dures@tas-cas.org, putting in copy Coun­sels for the Ap­pli­cant.”

The Unit­ed TTFA’s ap­pli­ca­tion is an at­tempt to se­cure T&T's place in the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup tour­na­ment.

CAS has con­firmed to the Unit­ed TTFA le­gal team that the mat­ter will be heard.

How­ev­er, chair­man of the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee Robert Hadad yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that T&T can still be part of the Gold Cup tour­na­ment if it with­draws all ac­tion and com­plies with the FI­FA de­mands quick­ly.

"There is pos­si­ble light at the end of the tun­nel. I have learned last night the Con­ca­caf Coun­cil de­cid­ed that if we meet the re­quire­ments laid down by FI­FA, and if FI­FA lifts the sus­pen­sion by De­cem­ber 18th, we will be per­mit­ted to com­pete in next sum­mer’s Gold Cup,” Hadad said.

“How­ev­er, if the sus­pen­sion re­mains in place on that date, we will be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly re­placed. This presents us with an op­por­tu­ni­ty but on­ly if we ur­gent­ly ad­dress FI­FA’s is­sues. I urge the mem­ber­ship of the TTFA and all foot­ball stake­hold­ers in our coun­try to get be­hind the Nor­mal­iza­tion Com­mit­tee. Please work with us; it is the on­ly way we can get the TTFA back on track."

He added, “Af­ter re­cent events, I hope all foot­ball stake­hold­ers in our coun­try will work to­geth­er with the Nor­mal­iza­tion Com­mit­tee for the ben­e­fit of foot­ball. We have a very dif­fi­cult task ahead but we owe it to the coach­es, the play­ers, the fans and to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to cre­ate a well-gov­erned and well-man­aged TTFA.”

The lat­est sce­nario de­vel­oped even as TTFA sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent and Women's Foot­ball League (Wolf) pres­i­dent, Su­san Joseph-War­rick an­nounced her res­ig­na­tion from all foot­ball in T&T yes­ter­day, be­com­ing the first ca­su­al­ty of the fall­out from le­gal bat­tle be­tween the TTFA and FI­FA.

Joseph-War­rick's an­nounce­ment came less than 24 hours af­ter FI­FA of­fi­cial­ly sus­pend­ed the T&TFA with im­me­di­ate ef­fect and un­til fur­ther no­tice. The rul­ing means that T&T can­not par­tic­i­pate in any FI­FA tour­na­ments, events or pro­grammes any­where in the world un­til the sus­pen­sion is lift­ed.

The rul­ing came af­ter the Unit­ed TTFA failed to with­draw its court mat­ter against FI­FA be­fore the sec­ond dead­line it was giv­en by the world gov­ern­ing body. The Unit­ed TTFA was chal­leng­ing FI­FA’s de­ci­sion to ap­point the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee to man­age the af­fairs of foot­ball in T&T months af­ter it took over the as­so­ci­a­tion.

Joseph-War­rick, who was elect­ed as WoLF pres­i­dent in April 2019 on a two-year term, was the lone woman on the Unit­ed TTFA slate that con­test­ed the No­vem­ber 24, 2019, elec­tions and was serv­ing along­side Wal­lace and vice-pres­i­dents Clynt Tay­lor and Joseph Sam Phillips.

In her res­ig­na­tion let­ter, she said: "This was a fight for prin­ci­ple and jus­tice and I felt we were well sup­port­ed in our ac­tions by the foot­ball lovers in T&T. With­in re­cent times it has be­come clear to me that we are al­so fight­ing against those that we rep­re­sent; the as­so­ci­a­tions, the clubs, the teams, sup­port­ers and sad­ly... the play­ers."

She al­so said she was sur­prised that the with­draw­al pa­pers had not been ten­dered in time to meet the FI­FA dead­line and avoid the ban.

"How and why these pa­pers were filed af­ter the 3 pm dead­line is be­yond me, and I am sad­dened and dis­ap­point­ed at the turn of events."

Wal­lace’s team was re­moved from of­fice by FI­FA on March 17 and Hadad’s team was ap­point­ed on March 27 to man­age the sport. This prompt­ed the Unit­ed TTFA’s le­gal chal­lenge of FI­FA's de­ci­sion at the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) in Switzer­land in April, which they with­draw in May claim­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al bias in favour of FI­FA as well as be­ing un­able to pay the 40,000 Swiss francs (TT$276,000) in as­so­ci­at­ed costs. The mat­ter was then lodged in the T&T High Court but FI­FA ob­ject­ed, claim­ing the TTFA had breached its statutes which for­bids mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions to take dis­putes to any oth­er body be­sides CAS.

Guardian Me­dia al­so learned yes­ter­day that the cur­rent dis­cus­sions and arrange­ments be­tween na­tion­al coach­es and the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee for out­stand­ing salaries will now be on hold un­til the sus­pen­sion is lift­ed. TTFA ad­min­is­tra­tive staff salaries for Sep­tem­ber will al­so not be paid and there will be no fund­ing for any na­tion­al pro­gramme dur­ing the sus­pen­sion.