After announcing that the police force had initiated no investigations into the allegations that bribery on an international scale had taken place at Trinidad and Tobago's Hyatt Regency Hotel, Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs modified that unfortunate position by announcing that he would be contacting Fifa to source information that might form the foundation of a case. The Commissioner might have been playing his game with a clear eye on the rules of case building, reasoning that there had been no clear allegation made directly to the police; there was no reason to act. This in spite of the public statements by Opposition Leader Keith Rowley and Diego Martin MP Colm Imbert who had called on the police chief to review the allegations, widely reported in international media, that more than a million US dollars had been brought into the country without being declared and handed out to members of the 30-nation- strong Caribbean Football Union (CFU) led, until his suspension from football administration by Fifa, by Jack Warner.
Commissioner Gibbs might well have been justifiably cautious about putting his toe in roiling, uncertain waters. The Fifa imbroglio has swerved, often in a matter of hours, from being an internal tussle to an international bribery bacchanal to a stew of intrigue that would have left Machiavelli admiringly envious.
Before running onto that muddled field, the Police Chief must have been keen to ensure that his legally specific cleats were needed in play. Gibbs would also have been justified in being concerned that he was being pushed into play by the Opposition PNM. There has already been enough idle talk about the role of the Police Commissioner being influenced by the political imperatives of the Government that the Commissioner might well have been cautious about being urged off the bench by the Opposition. Still, in an environment of public concern and international attention riveted on accusations of bluntly criminal activity taking place in Trinidad and Tobago, the Commissioner of Police could not be seen to be taking a position of seeing and hearing no evil until it is clearly pointed out to him.
With five members of the CFU coming forward to acknowledge publicly that they had been offered US$40,000 packages of cash addressed to their nations, there was clearly information being presented to Fifa that would be relevant to an investigation into wrongdoing in Trinidad and Tobago. Statements from the representatives of football associations of the CFU member states, Suriname, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which have come forward to acknowledge being offered the money, would surely offer the kind of foundation for investigation that would support the Commissioner's presence in this mercurial game. There's no doubt that distractions abound in the brouhaha that's arisen out of the bribery allegations, the re-election of Sepp Blatter, the accusations that continue to flurry around Jack Warner and Mohamed bin Hammam and the general sense of ill-will toward Fifa. In such an environment, Commissioner Gibbs must be clear in his role as the designated striker for law and justice in Trinidad and Tobago in his dealings with Fifa.
Despite his earlier reluctance to respond to the widespread international reports of alleged bribery on these shores, his strategy with the football body must be goal-focused. Gather relevant information and documentation from Fifa, solicit statements from those members of the CFU who have acknowledged receiving the payments and establish, from multiple independent sources, a verified lineup of participants in the illegal transaction of undeclared monies in Trinidad and Tobago. None of this is likely to be simple, but it is all necessary if Trinidad and Tobago is to redeem its reputation from the tarring it's received in the Fifa imbroglio and the justice that the Commissioner has sworn to uphold is served without fear or favour.