The pow­er strug­gle at CON­CA­CAF took an­oth­er trou­bling turn af­ter its ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee vot­ed to sus­pend its own act­ing pres­i­dent, Lisle Austin. Yes­ter­day, CON­CA­CAF's com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Hema Ramkissoon in a let­ter sent to the me­dia on be­half of Austin de­scribed the move as "il­le­gal." The claims be­ing made by the CON­CA­CAF Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee that they have pro­vi­sion­al­ly sus­pend­ed Mr Lisle Austin, act­ing pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF are il­le­gal.

The ac­tion con­tra­venes sev­er­al ar­ti­cles of the CON­CA­CAF Statutes. Hav­ing as­sumed the role of pres­i­dent un­der Ar­ti­cle 29, Mr Austin, as pres­i­dent, is the on­ly per­son au­tho­rised and em­pow­ered to call and chair meet­ings of the Con­gress, Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, and Emer­gency Com­mit­tee and of the Com­mit­tees. It nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­lows that if the pres­i­dent did not con­vene or did not chair any meet­ing of the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee that any ac­tions tak­en or de­ci­sions reached at said meet­ing are not on­ly un­en­force­able but are ul­tra vires.

The cur­rent ac­tions of the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee are not sanc­tioned by the Statutes of CON­CA­CAF. It is en­light­en­ing for the foot­ball world to know that the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee in its flawed in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Ar­ti­cle 28 (o) not on­ly has failed to en­gage in due process which is re­quired in any dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ter but has flout­ed the very statu­to­ry re­quire­ments ar­tic­u­lat­ed in the CON­CA­CAF Statutes nec­es­sary to move in such a di­rec­tion.

Ar­ti­cle 28 (o) places the bur­den of proof on the ac­cuser that a mem­ber of the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee has vi­o­lat­ed FI­FA's or CON­CA­CAF's statutes or reg­u­la­to­ry pro­vi­sions. It is no sur­prise then that the at­tempt at sus­pend­ing Mr Austin through ac­tion that is ul­tra vires and il­le­gal and has de­nied him the op­por­tu­ni­ty of a hear­ing, no op­por­tu­ni­ty for Mr Austin to hear the charges be­ing lev­elled against him or to de­fend him­self against what­ev­er base­less charges would have been trumped up.

To date, Mr Austin is un­aware of the grounds for which he has been il­le­gal­ly sus­pend­ed and this con­duct demon­strates the law­less ac­tiv­i­ties of cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als. Some mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee are clear­ly en­gag­ing in il­le­gal ac­tions at the prod­ding of forces which do not have the best in­ter­est of CON­CA­CAF at heart. Mr Austin in­tends to ad­dress their con­tin­ued il­le­gal ac­tion at all lev­els. And Mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee are now placed on no­tice.

Mr Austin re­jects the press state­ment, claim­ing Al­fre­do Haw­it is act­ing pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF and wish­es to ad­vise mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions and staff mem­bers that any­one act­ing up­on the in­struc­tions of Mr Haw­it will be im­pli­cat­ing them­selves in­to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. Yet again the act­ing pres­i­dent Austin is sad­dened to note that the re­sponse from the CON­CA­CAF Me­dia De­part­ment is the fruit of il­le­gal ac­tions on the part of those who do not pos­sess the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly grant­ed pow­ers to utilise the Con­fed­er­a­tion's equip­ment and re­sources. Mr Austin is both shocked and dis­heart­ened that the on­line pub­li­ca­tions of the Con­fed­er­a­tion are once again be­ing em­ployed to wage a war against the Of­fice of the act­ing pres­i­dent, a war in which on­ly the Con­fed­er­a­tion and its mem­bers will con­tin­ue to suf­fer.