For­mer T&T se­nior men's team cap­tain and cur­rent na­tion­al youth team coach An­gus Eve has wel­comed the de­ci­sion by FI­FA to re­move the ban on T&T foot­ball.

On Thurs­day, FI­FA lift­ed the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTFA) in­ter­na­tion­al sus­pen­sion with im­me­di­ate ef­fect af­ter what it de­scribed as "fruit­ful dis­cus­sion" be­tween FI­FA and the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee rep­re­sent­ing the TTFA.

In their re­lease, FI­FA said it had tak­en note of a re­cent de­ci­sion by the of the T&T Court of Ap­peal and the ex­press wish of the mem­bers of the lo­cal Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) for all as­so­ci­at­ed le­gal claims brought by par­ties pur­port­ing to act in the name of the or­gan­i­sa­tion to be ter­mi­nat­ed, and af­ter de­lib­er­at­ing its Bu­reau of the FI­FA Coun­cil had de­cid­ed to lift the sus­pen­sion.

By lift­ing the sus­pen­sion, all of the TTFA mem­ber­ship rights have been re­in­stat­ed and TTFA rep­re­sen­ta­tive and club teams are again en­ti­tled to take part in in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions.

The TTFA may al­so ben­e­fit from de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, cours­es and train­ing pro­vid­ed by FI­FA and/or Con­ca­caf. More­over, FI­FA mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions may again en­ter in­to sport­ing con­tact with the TTFA and/or its teams.

In ad­di­tion, the mem­bers of the TTFA nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, which was in­stalled by a de­ci­sion of the Bu­reau of the FI­FA Coun­cil on March 17, has al­so been grant­ed per­mis­sion to re­sume with their du­ties.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to Thurs­day’s re­in­state­ment by FI­FA, the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee via a press re­lease said it not­ed that the TTFA's "mem­ber­ship rights in FI­FA will be re­in­stat­ed in time for T&T to com­pete in the 2021 (CON­CA­CAF) Gold Cup and the 2022 FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

This af­ter the Bu­reau of the FI­FA Coun­cil took the de­ci­sion to sus­pend the TTFA on Sep­tem­ber 24 af­ter the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of the TTFA, led by for­mer pres­i­dent William Wal­lace per­sist­ed with le­gal ac­tion in T&T's high Court chal­leng­ing FI­FA's ap­point­ment of a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee in March of this year.

Ac­cord­ing to the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee, such ac­tion was con­trary to and a breach of ar­ti­cle 59 of the FI­FA Statutes.

The TTFA was grant­ed vic­to­ry in the mat­ter on Oc­to­ber 13 by Judge Car­ol Gob­in, who deemed that FI­FA's de­ci­sion to ac­ti­vate the nor­mal­i­sa­tion was im­prop­er and made in bad faith.

How­ev­er, 11 days lat­er Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and Jus­tice Nolan Bereaux over­turned Gob­in's rul­ing when they de­ter­mined that the law­suit brought by Wal­lace and his Unit­ed TTFA team had con­tra­vened the TTFA’s con­sti­tu­tion.

Fac­ing a TTFA Ex­tra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing to de­cide whether the TTFA should recog­nise FI­FA's nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, Wal­lace stepped down as TTFA pres­i­dent, clear­ing the way for the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee chair­man, busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, to ini­ti­ate dis­cus­sions with FI­FA.

Eve, T&T’s most capped play­er with 117 ap­pear­ances, on Fri­day said it was a re­al­ly great day for T&T foot­ball.

“It’s re­al­ly good to see that FI­FA has risen the ban on our foot­ball, said an up­beat Eve, a mem­ber of the re­cent­ly formed Na­tion­al Coach­es As­so­ci­a­tion.

“This is pos­i­tive news in that it now al­lows for play­ers to get back in­volve in some form of train­ing lo­cal­ly with the aim of help­ing their re­spec­tive na­tion­al teams qual­i­fy for in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments, for of­fi­cials to be ap­point­ed to com­pe­ti­tions on an in­ter­na­tion­al scale as well as coach­es to get back out there and help de­vel­op the na­tion’s youths.”

Re­flect­ing on the day that FI­FA opt­ed to re-in­state the TTFA, 48-year-old Eve said, “Iron­i­cal­ly, we cel­e­brat­ed No­vem­ber 19 (Thurs­day) in re­mem­brance of the “Strike Squad” not just on­ly com­ing so close to qual­i­fy­ing for the Italy 1990 World Cup, but as a day that brought the coun­try to­geth­er in the most pos­i­tive way through sports.

“And in a sense with us now be­ing re-in­stat­ed on No­vem­ber 19 it feels like we have been lib­er­at­ed again be­cause sports and in par­tic­u­lar foot­ball has a way of mak­ing such a pos­i­tive im­pact on our so­ci­ety as it has shown in the past."

With re­gards to all the is­sues sur­round­ing the pay­ment of coach­es which were put on hold when the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee ceased op­er­a­tions, Eve, the cur­rent na­tion­al Un­der-17 coach said that they will be ready and will­ing for any pos­i­tive dis­cus­sions when the op­por­tu­ni­ty is pre­sent­ed to them.

Al­ready na­tion­al se­nior men's coach Ter­ry Fen­wick has re­sumed train­ing with a most­ly lo­cal­ly-based group of play­ers.

On Fri­day morn­ing ahead of the start of the na­tion­al team's prac­tice ses­sion, Hadad paid them a vis­it, ad­dress­ing the mem­bers of staff and play­ers.

"It was a great boost for every­one this morn­ing to have the nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee chair­man Robert Hadad at our train­ing ses­sion the very next morn­ing af­ter the ban was lift­ed and nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee re­in­stat­ed to run the af­fairs of the FA.

"He ad­dressed us and while we are ful­ly aware that there is much work to be done as we look ahead to a hec­tic 2021, I think his pres­ence was well re­ceived and we are all an­tic­i­pat­ing more pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments for our foot­bal in the months ahead," Fen­wick said.

How­ev­er, with no FI­FA in­ter­na­tion­al match win­dow avail­able un­til next March, Fen­wick will be hop­ing to nav­i­gate his way around or­gan­is­ing some in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies with neigh­bour­ing coun­tries with the aim of get­ting his play­ers up to the re­quired fit­ness lev­els need­ed for in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

When the Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers for Qatar 2022 kicks off in March, T&T will com­pete in Group F with Puer­to Ri­co, Guyana, St Kitts/Nevis and Ba­hamas from which on­ly the win­ners will ad­vance to face the ta­ble-top­pers from Group A, which com­pris­es US Vir­gin Is­lands, El Sal­vador, Grena­da, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da and Montser­rat.

Fen­wick's men will al­so face min­nows Montser­rat in their first-round play­off for the 2021 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup with the win­ners to face the vic­tor be­tween French Guiana and Cu­ba for a spot at the Gold Cup in a tough Pool A than con­sists of Cu­ra­cao, Mex­i­co and El Sal­vador.