It seems the Fed­er­a­tion In­ter­na­tionale de Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (FI­FA) will have its way no mat­ter what.

Yes­ter­day, Randy Har­ris, pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) and an­oth­er CFU mem­ber who opt­ed to keep his iden­ti­ty se­cret for fear of reper­cus­sions by the sport's gov­ern­ing body, of­fered in­sights of ab­solute gloom and doom for the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), if the team of for­mer pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his vice-pres­i­dents Clynt Tay­lor, Joseph Sam Phillip and Su­san Joseph-War­rick, con­tin­ues the bat­tle for re­moval of the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee which was ap­point­ed by the FI­FA in March.

The ac­tions of the TTFA con­sti­tute a di­rect vi­o­la­tion of the Statutes of FI­FA and the gov­ern­ing body will not sub­mit to the wish­es of the TTFA to pre­vent Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions from tak­ing sim­i­lar ac­tion in the fu­ture, Har­ris ex­plained yes­ter­day, hence why the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) has been es­tab­lished as the court where all dis­putes at FI­FA can be re­solved.

The Unit­ed TTFA and FI­FA will head to the Court of Ap­peal in Port-of-Spain on Oc­to­ber 19, just over two months af­ter Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in in the T&T High Court ruled that the mat­ter can be set­tled in the lo­cal courts, a de­ci­sion that FI­FA has since ap­pealed.

Har­ris said he is deeply hurt by the Unit­ed TTFA's per­sis­tence to move for­ward with the case as the penal­ty will be too se­vere for the coun­try.

"A sus­pen­sion can mean foot­ball will be the los­er here, as no­body would want to have any­thing to do with the TTFA. No match­es can be played, no World Cup or Gold Cup Qual­i­fiers for one of the bright­est na­tions in the Caribbean."

The oth­er CFU mem­ber said a ban will im­me­di­ate­ly ren­der the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee null and void.

"There will be no one to run foot­ball in T&T, but Wal­lace and his team can do it if they choose, they will just not be recog­nised by the FI­FA. A sus­pen­sion can be for any amount of time, three years to five years etc and dur­ing that time Trinidad will on­ly be able to play against To­ba­go, as no oth­er FI­FA-reg­is­tered foot­ball na­tion will risk the chance of be­ing sanc­tioned it­self, to play against T&T."

In ad­di­tion to oth­er dire con­se­quences of a FI­FA ban which in­cludes no fund­ing, the in­abil­i­ty to take part in FI­FA-sanc­tioned tour­na­ments, such as World Cup qual­i­fiers, CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup, Caribbean and or CON­CA­CAF Club Cham­pi­onships, an­oth­er detri­men­tal as­pect of a FI­FA ban in­cludes the pre­ven­tion of young po­ten­tial foot­ballers from get­ting op­tions to be ex­posed to the in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty where tri­als and con­tracts await them.

"Pro­fes­sion­als such as ref­er­ees who are sched­uled for match­es by the CON­CA­CAF will now be black­list­ed as CON­CA­CAF could do noth­ing to help non-mem­bers," said the CFU mem­ber, adding that gain­ing re-en­try in­to FI­FA will be an­oth­er prob­lem.

"Now FI­FA will have its way no mat­ter what. If T&T is sus­pend­ed then there will be no one to run the af­fairs of the sport, how­ev­er, the mem­bers of the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, since be­ing ap­point­ed by the FI­FA, will have the op­tion to vol­un­tar­i­ly man­age the sport, and if they are able to do so un­in­ter­rupt­ed­ly for the du­ra­tion of the sus­pen­sion, then Robert Hadad can make a case for our re­turn as a mem­ber."

He added, "My pre­dic­tion is that FI­FA will not at­tend the Ap­peal and would in­stead de­cide to sus­pend the TTFA, and I don't think it's be­ing a bul­ly or any­thing like that but just the fact that the FI­FA has rules and all mem­bers are to abide by them if they want to be a part, that's all."

FI­FA, through its Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fat­ma Samoura gave the TTFA un­til Sep­tem­ber 16 to re­move the mat­ter from the court or else face sanc­tions. Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, the FI­FA Con­gress will take place on Sep­tem­ber 18 and it is be­ing pre­dict­ed that FI­FA's heavy hand can be felt there and then.