De­spite hav­ing a judge­ment against them in the T&T's High Court in Port-of-Spain on Au­gust 13, foot­ball's world gov­ern­ing body FI­FA re­mains adamant the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) in Lau­sanne Switzer­land, will be the ju­ris­dic­tion for the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion for the right to ap­point a Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee to gov­ern the af­fairs of foot­ball in the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic.

It means, how­ev­er, that T&T will be on the verge ex­pect­ed sanc­tions, should the CAS not be cho­sen to re­solve the mat­ter.

FI­FA in March, re­placed the Unit­ed TTFA with a nor­mal­iza­tion com­mit­tee, cit­ing man­age­ment flaws that were steer­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion in­to in­sol­ven­cy, with no way to clear­ing its debt which FI­FA es­ti­mat­ed at US$37.4 mil­lion.

In its re­sponse on Thurs­day, FI­FA has out­lined 12 grounds for ap­peal which in­cludes ar­ti­cles 67 of FI­FA statutes which it states that (a) That pro­vi­sions of Ar­ti­cle 67 of the Re­spon­dent's Con­sti­tu­tion were void and (b) It was out­with the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Re­spon­dent, as an en­ti­ty in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go leg­is­la­tion, to agree to sub­mit to for­eign law as FI­FA stat­ues pre­scribe.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a sev­en-day pe­ri­od in which it had to de­cide on whether or not it was go­ing to ap­peal, FI­FA yes­ter­day ap­pealed the de­ci­sion hand­ed down by Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in, which in­struct­ed that the mat­ter would be heard in the High Court in T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to Gob­in: “This mat­ter is not a mat­ter for the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports.”

In hand­ing down her de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Gob­in urged the FI­FA to not ex­er­cise dis­crim­i­na­tion of any kind against the TTFA, say­ing: “65. As for the con­cerns about ir­repara­ble fall­out or ad­verse con­se­quences to TTFA and T&T I am en­cour­aged by the lofty ob­jec­tives iden­ti­fied in FI­FA statutes and par­tic­u­lar­ly ar­ti­cles (3) and (4) of FI­FA's com­mit­ment to re­spect­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised hu­man rights, non-dis­crim­i­na­tion of any kind against a coun­try for any rea­son and its com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing friend­ly re­la­tions in so­ci­ety for hu­man­i­tar­i­an ob­jec­tives all of which are un­der­pinned by an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the rule of law. I do not ex­pect FI­FA to walk off the field or to take its ball and go home if, af­ter full ven­ti­la­tion of the is­sues, this court were to con­firm the pri­ma­cy of an Act of the Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go over the FI­FA Statutes.”

Ac­cord­ing to FI­FA yes­ter­day: “This ap­peal is a for­mal step, and as foot­ball's world gov­ern­ing body, FI­FA fur­ther in­sists that the on­ly recog­nised path to re­solve such a dis­pute is the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS). The recog­ni­tion of the CAS as the cor­rect fo­rum in which to hear the dis­pute is in ac­cor­dance with the FI­FA Statutes that all 211 FI­FA mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions have agreed to, as well as in agree­ment with TTFA's own statutes on this mat­ter.”

It added: “The in­sis­tence of the TTFA for­mer lead­er­ship to bring this mat­ter to a lo­cal court in­stead of the es­tab­lished dis­pute res­o­lu­tion fo­rum at CAS great­ly en­dan­gers the over­all foot­ball struc­ture in the coun­try and en­dan­gers the po­si­tion of T&T foot­ball in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

“The ab­sence of a res­o­lu­tion that is in line with the statutes of both FI­FA and TTFA will re­sult in the mat­ter be­ing brought to the at­ten­tion of the rel­e­vant FI­FA bod­ies for con­sid­er­a­tion and po­ten­tial fur­ther ac­tion.”

William Wal­lace, pres­i­dent of the oust­ed TTFA which al­so in­cludes vice pres­i­dents Clynt Tay­lor, Su­san Joseph-War­rick and Joseph Sam Phillip, re­spond­ed to claims by the FI­FA that the coun­try faces sanc­tion if the CAS is not the place for the res­o­lu­tion, say­ing the on­ly rea­son they end­ed up at the High Court, was be­cause they went to the CAS and re­ceived no cor­po­ra­tion.

Mean­while, ac­cord­ing to a FI­FA press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day it stat­ed:

"FI­FA is to­day (Thurs­day) lodg­ing an ap­peal against the de­ci­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Court is­sued last week to pro­ceed with a claim from the for­mer lead­er­ship of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) against the de­ci­sion of the Bu­reau of the FI­FA Coun­cil in March 2020 to ap­point a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee for the TTFA.

This ap­peal is a for­mal step, and as foot­ball’s world gov­ern­ing body, FI­FA fur­ther in­sists that the on­ly recog­nised path to re­solve such a dis­pute is the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS). The recog­ni­tion of the CAS as the cor­rect fo­rum in which to hear the dis­pute is in ac­cor­dance with the FI­FA Statutes that all 211 FI­FA mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions have agreed to, as well as in agree­ment with TTFA’s own statutes on this mat­ter.

The in­sis­tence of the TTFA for­mer lead­er­ship to bring this mat­ter to a lo­cal court in­stead of the es­tab­lished dis­pute res­o­lu­tion fo­rum at CAS great­ly en­dan­gers the over­all foot­ball struc­ture in the coun­try and en­dan­gers the po­si­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

The ab­sence of a res­o­lu­tion that is in line with the statutes of both FI­FA and TTFA will re­sult in the mat­ter be­ing brought to the at­ten­tion of the rel­e­vant FI­FA bod­ies for con­sid­er­a­tion and po­ten­tial fur­ther ac­tion."

Wal­lace and his three vice pres­i­dents are al­so seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that the de­ci­sion to re­move them in March and re­place them with a com­mit­tee head­ed by busi­ness­man Robert Hadad, was null, void, and of no le­gal or bind­ing ef­fect. They are rep­re­sent­ed by Dr Emir Crowne, Matthew Gayle, Crys­tal Paul, and Ja­son Jones, while Christo­pher Hamel-Smith, SC, Jonathan Walk­er and Cherie Gopie are rep­re­sent­ing FI­FA.