Derek Achong

The T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTFF) yes­ter­day sought to have a High Court Judge re­cuse him­self from pre­sid­ing over on­go­ing con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings against the fed­er­a­tion. In their ap­pli­ca­tion which was pre­sent­ed in the Port-of-Spain High Court, the TTFF through their at­tor­ney British Queen Coun­sel Nicholas Stew­art, the fed­er­a­tion al­leged that Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad made pre-ju­di­cial state­ments dur­ing a pre­vi­ous court hear­ing. Ram­per­sad has been pre­sid­ing over the TTFF's long-stand­ing le­gal dis­pute with 13 na­tion­al foot­ballers of the 2006 World Cup squad over un­paid fees. At pre­vi­ous hear­ings Ram­per­sad ex­pressed a de­sire to bring clo­sure to the on­go­ing le­gal bat­tle with­out risk­ing fur­ther dam­age to T&T's in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball rep­u­ta­tion.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day's hear­ing at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the TTFF and the foot­ballers formed a con­sent or­der in which both par­ties agreed to al­low­ing an­oth­er judge of the High Court to hear the mat­ter. The judge that will be hear­ing the mat­ter will be de­cid­ed by the Ju­di­cia­ry. For­mer TTFF pres­i­dent Oliv­er Camps and cur­rent Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Richard Gro­den have been list­ed as par­ties to the con­tempt pro­ceed­ing. The con­tempt pro­ceed­ings were first ini­ti­at­ed by the foot­ballers af­ter the TTFF failed to pro­vid­ed the fed­er­a­tion's fi­nan­cial records which were re­quest­ed in the case. In an af­fi­davits filed in the court's reg­istry last year, for­mer TTFF spe­cial ad­vi­sor and for­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er in­di­cat­ed that he would sup­ply the TTFF and the court with the re­quest­ed doc­u­ments. How­ev­er at an hear­ing ear­li­er this year, Warn­er through his at­tor­ney Om Lal­la said he could not be of fur­ther as­sis­tance to the court. In Feb­ru­ary, levy ac­tion was tak­en against the TTFF by the play­ers dur­ing which TTFF's Dun­don­ald Street of­fice was stripped of all of its con­tents.

In their le­gal ac­tion the play­ers who be­longed to the team that par­tic­i­pat­ed in the World Cup in 2006 al­leged that for­mer Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee chair­man Warn­er promised them a 50 per cent share of all World Cup rev­enues. The Lon­don-based Sport Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Pan­el (SDRP), was al­so called up­on to in­ter­vene in the im­passe and on May 19, 2008, it ruled in fa­vor of the group of play­ers. On Oc­to­ber 11, last year, Ram­per­sad ruled sim­i­lar­ly al­low­ing the Fed­er­a­tion sev­en days to pay an in­ter­im sum of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4.2 mil­lion (US$710,000) to the 13 play­ers. The fed­er­a­tion failed to com­ply.

The group of play­ers are: Play­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Brent San­cho, Stern John, Cyd Gray, An­tho­ny Wolfe, At­i­ba Charles and Au­r­tis Whit­ley, Sha­ka His­lop, Kelvin Jack, Av­ery John, Collin Samuel, Evans Wise, Cor­nell Glen and Ken­wyne Jones.

The play­ers are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Phillip La­m­ont and Dave De Peiza while Derek Ali is al­so rep­re­sent­ing the TTFF. The mat­ter will be heard next on a date that would be fixed by the court.