Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Randy Har­ris says while the de­ci­sion by FI­FA to take over the ad­min­is­tra­tion of foot­ball in Trinidad and To­ba­go is un­for­tu­nate, an ap­peal against the move is like­ly to be un­suc­cess­ful.

While the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) and oth­ers in the lo­cal foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty have de­scribed as a coup, the plan by the world gov­ern­ing body for the sport to re­place the board with a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, Har­ris said FI­FA was act­ing with­in the rules that all mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions (MAs) have agreed to play by.

TTFA pres­i­dent William Wal­lace an­nounced Wednes­day that the as­so­ci­a­tion has mount­ed a chal­lenge to FI­FA’s de­ci­sion at the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS).

He ques­tioned why such dras­tic ac­tion was tak­en, con­sid­er­ing no such move was made against the David John-Williams-led ad­min­is­tra­tion from which his ex­ec­u­tive in­her­it­ed a TT$50 mil­lion (US$7.4 mil­lion) debt when it took over last No­vem­ber.

“This is a very un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion be­cause we have a du­ly elect­ed body of mem­bers to run the T&TFA,” Har­ris told An­dre Er­rol Bap­tiste on I955 FM’s IS­ports ra­dio show on Thurs­day. “The Trinidad and To­ba­go FA has found it­self in a sad sit­u­a­tion which all of us in the Caribbean could be in to­mor­row.”

How­ev­er, he said, an ap­peal would be an ex­pen­sive op­tion that had lit­tle chance of suc­cess.

“In this par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion – in my view, based on my ex­pe­ri­ence – it would be very, very dif­fi­cult to win a case such as this be­cause FI­FA has a right to de­cide when they will in­tro­duce nor­mal­i­sa­tion. If you read the statutes, ba­si­cal­ly we all agree to play un­der the stat­ues of FI­FA,” Har­ris con­tend­ed.

FI­FA said Wednes­day that it was go­ing the nor­mal­i­sa­tion route be­cause an as­sess­ment it car­ried out in con­junc­tion with con­ti­nen­tal gov­ern­ing body, CON­CA­CAF, found ex­treme­ly low over­all fi­nan­cial man­age­ment meth­ods, com­bined with a mas­sive debt that re­sult­ed in the TTFA fac­ing “a very re­al risk of in­sol­ven­cy and illiq­uid­i­ty”.

Har­ris not­ed that giv­en the TTFA’s fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, it would be dif­fi­cult for it to ad­e­quate­ly ad­min­is­ter foot­ball in the twin-is­land re­pub­lic.

Against that back­ground, he re­it­er­at­ed the need for the Caribbean to de­vel­op the sport so as­so­ci­a­tions could all be­come self-suf­fi­cient and not have to de­pend on FI­FA mon­ey.

“You can’t have it both ways…. The funds that FI­FA is al­lot­ting to us is not a right, it is a priv­i­lege. FIF­FA can get a pres­i­dent next week that de­cides that that is not the po­si­tion that FI­FA will take in the fu­ture. What will we do in the Caribbean?” he ques­tioned.

“We need to get to­geth­er and we need to work to­geth­er to en­sure that we de­vel­op foot­ball prop­er­ly. Yes, we are in­di­vid­ual MAs, but when it comes to ed­u­ca­tion in the game, de­vel­op­ment in the game, search­ing for spon­sor­ship, we need to get to­geth­er and bring our num­bers to­geth­er.”

FI­FA’s nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee will have up to two years to car­ry out its work, in­clud­ing cre­at­ing a debt re­pay­ment plan which the TTFA can im­ple­ment, re­view­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body’s statutes and en­sur­ing their ad­her­ence to FI­FA reg­u­la­tions, and over­see­ing new elec­tions.

Un­til the com­mit­tee is op­er­a­tional, FI­FA has se­lect­ed ac­coun­tant Tyril Patrick, who is linked to the pre­vi­ous TTFA regime, to be in charge.

That move have al­so been ques­tioned by Wal­lace who said ex­pressed con­cern that Patrick had been “part of an ad­min­is­tra­tion that was part of a regime that led to the col­lapse of the as­so­ci­a­tion”.

In an in­ter­view on CNC3 TV on­line, for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al goal­keep­er and ES­PN tele­vi­sion an­a­lyst Neil Sha­ka His­lop said FI­FA’s ac­tions were “disin­gen­u­ous and self-serv­ing”.

“You do not in­stall the ac­coun­tant that over­saw the fi­nances of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion — that were there for the last four years while that debt mush­roomed — as the in­ter­im in run­ning our fi­nan­cial af­fairs,” His­lop said.

“Why you wait un­til some 10 years to in­stall a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee in­to our foot­ball is be­yond me. And all signs point to on­ly one thing — that both the FI­FA hi­er­ar­chy and the CON­CA­CAF lead­er­ship were in favour of the David John-Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion. Now, you have to ques­tion why that is, you can spec­u­late, but I have my feel­ing about it, but you don’t over­turn a le­gal, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion be­cause you are dis­ap­point­ed that your man on the in­side lost.”

(CMC)