It is be­lieved FI­FA's in­ter­ven­tion in­to lo­cal foot­ball through a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee, may or may not be a bless­ing in dis­guise.

The nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee was im­ple­ment­ed on March 17 by the world gov­ern­ing body for foot­ball, FI­FA, af­ter it felt the fi­nan­cial po­si­tion of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) hinged on it be­ing in­sol­vent. Since then three out of five mem­bers of the com­mit­tee were cho­sen, de­spite des­per­ate calls to re­scind the com­mit­tee as the for­mer TTFA ex­ec­u­tive de­cides to chal­lenge FI­FA through Court of Ad­min­is­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) in Switzer­land through at­tor­neys Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew Gayle.

In a re­sponse to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, three foot­ball coach­es in­clud­ing Bri­an Williams, an for­mer Strike Squad de­fend­er and na­tion­al Un­der-20 coach, Shawn Coop­er, a for­mer na­tion­al Un­der-17 coach who al­so led Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (San Fer­nan­do) to its first Co­ca Co­la Na­tion­al In­ter­Col ti­tle last year, and Lyn­don An­drews, a coach at Ari­ma North Sec­ondary, be­lieve the com­mit­tee could be a bless­ing, once it can turn T&T's foot­ball for­tunes around.

Williams told Guardian Me­dia Sports it is no se­cret that the sport has been strug­gling in all ar­eas for some time now and some­thing has to be done to re­vive it.

"The FI­FA is the world gov­ern­ing body for the sport and if it feels that the sport here is not be­ing run as it should be and they want to as­sist, then so be it," Williams ex­plained.

He said that mem­bers of the pub­lic have been left in the dark con­cern­ing what has been tak­ing place in the sport, say­ing one day you hear about the Home of Foot­ball be­ing an in­come-gen­er­a­tor, and the next thing, it can­not be used for the pur­pose that it was con­struct­ed for.

"I just want to see foot­ball be­ing run the right way. I want to see coach­es be­ing al­lowed to coach and be paid for it. I want to see the huge TTFA debt liq­ui­dat­ed com­plete­ly, play­ers al­lowed to play and the na­tion­al teams com­pet­i­tive once more. Right now there is no mo­ti­va­tion. There's no prize mon­ey for com­pe­ti­tion and play­ers can­not make a liv­ing from ply­ing their trade, etc."

Williams al­so sym­pa­thised with the William Wal­lace-led TTFA, not­ing that with on­ly three months in of­fice, it was very lit­tle that could have done.

Mean­while, An­drews who has been one of this coun­try’s cre­ative mid­field­ers from the youth to se­nior lev­els, made it clear a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee in T&T foot­ball was need­ed a long time now, even in the Jack Warn­er days.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the com­mit­tee came dur­ing the Wal­lace-led ad­min­is­tra­tion, but it was need­ed in David John-Williams, Ray­mond Tim Kee and in the times of Jack Warn­er be­cause for all those times our foot­ball had been in the red. It is nec­es­sary now be­cause our foot­ball has been go­ing back­wards. We need our foot­ball to move for­ward again and I be­lieve the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee will put us on that path,” An­drews said.

“When John-Williams came in, every­one thought he would have res­cued us by clear­ing the debt but in­stead our foot­ball sunk fur­ther in­to debt. Now while Wal­lace team may have ideas, we are not sure. What is im­por­tant for us now is to en­sure that our foot­ball gets back on track.”

In Feb­ru­ary of­fi­cials of the FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF vis­it­ed the TTFA on a fact-find­ing mis­sion which in­clud­ing ex­am­ing the TTFA books to de­ter­mine what plans to im­ple­ment go­ing for­ward to erad­i­cate the claimed $50 mil­lion debt. And soon af­ter it (FI­FA) con­firmed this in a let­ter, by stat­ing fur­ther that the TTFA ap­peared to be fac­ing in­sol­ven­cy.

Mean­while, Coop­er, who was over­looked for a coach­ing po­si­tion un­der the for­mer pres­i­dent Wal­lace said the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the com­mit­tee was in­evitable.

"It is sad we can­not run our af­fairs but it was al­ways in­com­ing. We have had a prob­lem with our debt, not on­ly now but un­der Jack Warn­er, Ray­mond Tim Kee, David John-Williams and now William Wal­lace. Some peo­ple be­lieve the com­mit­tee should have come be­fore. How­ev­er, once it can en­sure that crowds would come out at the Pro League match­es or if the debt will be paid or if clubs will be self-sus­tain­able at the end of the two years then it will be worth the while," Coop­er said.

The FI­FA nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee is led by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad as chair­man with at­tor­ney Judy Daniel and deputy chair­man and re­tired banker Nigel Ra­mano as mem­ber.

Mean­while, Wal­lace, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Sec­ondary School League (SS­FL) is call­ing on the na­tion to sup­port he and his elect­ed vice pres­i­dents to chal­lenge the world gov­ern­ing body for the sport of foot­ball - FI­FA through the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, via a ‘go fund me’ cam­paign which was launched on Mon­day.

The cam­paign will re­quire mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tribute gen­er­ous­ly to­wards fight­ing the cause of in­jus­tice against FI­FA, through the web­site (https://www.go­fundme.com/f/TTFAFights). Wal­lace to­geth­er with vice pres­i­dents — Clynt Tay­lor, Joseph Sam Phillip and Su­san Joseph-War­rick will be rep­re­sent­ed by sports at­tor­neys Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew GW Gayle. The le­gal cost is es­ti­mat­ed to be around TT$300,000 to $500,000. The dead­line for the chal­lenge to be reg­is­tered is April 7.