FI­FA has lost its bid to have a law­suit by a group of for­mer T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers over their re­moval dis­missed be­fore it even kicked off.

De­liv­er­ing a judge­ment elec­tron­i­cal­ly on Thurs­day, High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in re­ject­ed FI­FA's in­ter­im ap­pli­ca­tion to strike out the claim based on its rule, which pre­cludes mem­ber fed­er­a­tions and as­so­ci­a­tions from tak­ing le­gal ac­tion against it in their lo­cal courts.

Gob­in ruled that FI­FA's rule, which it says the TTFA agreed to when it joined the or­gan­i­sa­tion, could not oust the ju­ris­dic­tion of the lo­cal courts to de­ter­mine whether its rules are in con­for­mi­ty to the Act of Par­lia­ment, which es­tab­lished the TTFA.

She al­so said that ar­bi­tra­tion, with the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) as the ref­er­ee, as sug­gest­ed by FI­FA and ini­tial­ly at­tempt­ed by for­mer TTFA pres­i­dent William Wal­lace and his ex­ec­u­tive could not re­solve the dis­pute.

"This is a mat­ter which falls square­ly with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of the High Court of this coun­try. This is not a mat­ter for the CAS," Gob­in said.

Gob­in al­so not­ed that FI­FA's pol­i­cy of re­fus­ing to pay its share of the 40,000 Swiss francs (TT$276,000) re­quired for the ar­bi­tra­tion be­fore the CAS ren­dered the process in­op­er­a­ble.

She said that at the even­tu­al tri­al of the case Fi­fa would have to prove that its re­moval of the board and the ap­point­ment of its nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee was in con­for­mi­ty with its own statutes which speak to re­spect­ing the in­de­pen­dence of mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions.

"FI­FA may yet have to jus­ti­fy its pur­port­ed as­sump­tion of ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­er to con­trol the day to day af­fairs of the TTFA, in­clud­ing the au­thor­i­ty to amend to re­view and amend its statutes and to or­gan­ise and con­duct elec­tions of a new TTFA Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee for a four-year man­date," she said.

In her judge­ment, Gob­in made not­ed of FI­FA's open threat that for­mer board's con­tin­ued pur­suit of the mat­ter in court may lead to the sus­pen­sion of the coun­try's mem­ber­ship and fund­ing cuts.

Gob­in not­ed that while FI­FA has a du­ty to en­sure the en­force­ment of its rules, she not­ed that its lofty ob­jec­tives in Ar­ti­cle 3 and 4 of its statutes in­clude a com­mit­ment to non-dis­crim­i­na­tion and hu­man­i­tar­i­an ob­jec­tives un­der­pinned by the rule of law.

"I do not ex­pect FI­FA to walk off the field or 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," she said.

FI­FA was or­dered to pay the for­mer board's le­gal costs for de­fend­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion.

Through the lo­cal law­suit, Wal­lace and his three vice pres­i­dents — Clynt Tay­lor, Joseph Sam Phillips, and Su­san Joseph-War­rick are 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 al­so seek­ing a per­ma­nent in­junc­tion bar­ring FI­FA from med­dling in the TTFA's af­fair by al­leged­ly seek­ing to cir­cum­vent the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process by re­mov­ing du­ly elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

Wal­lace and his col­leagues are be­ing 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.

A date for the next hear­ing of the case is yet to be fixed.