William Wal­lace, who was re­moved as the pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) has made it known that he and his ex­ec­u­tive, vice pres­i­dents Clynt Tay­lor, Joseph 'Sam' Phillip and Su­san Joseph-War­rick, are still in charge of the man­age­ment of the sport in T&T.

Wal­lace, who is al­so the pres­i­dent of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), said in a video state­ment on Wednes­day that he can on­ly be re­moved by the op­er­a­tions of the TTFA's con­sti­tu­tion and not by the sport's world gov­ern­ing body-FI­FA, of which the coun­try (TTFA) is a mem­ber.

On March 17, the FI­FA in­formed the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of TTFA Rame­sha Ramd­han that the ex­ec­u­tive has been re­moved and a nor­mal­iza­tion com­mit­tee will gov­ern the sport in T&T af­ter it was felt that the in­sta­bil­i­ty of the TTFA, cou­pled with its un­con­vinc­ing plans to clear debts that have crip­pled the sport for many years in the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic, had left a lot to be de­sired. As such the FI­FA en­forced Ar­ti­cle 8.2 of its Statutes, al­low­ing a nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee to take con­trol of the sport for a max­i­mum of two years.

The FI­FA, which is head­ed by Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no, who Wal­lace has fin­gered as a known sup­port­er of the pre­vi­ous TTFA ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der David John-Williams, agreed to re­move the William Wal­lace-led foot­ball ex­ec­u­tive, which was just three months in­to its four-year tenure, af­ter be­ing elect­ed on No­vem­ber 24. On March 27 FI­FA named the Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee with busi­ness­man Robert Hadad as chair­man, and En­vi­ron­men­tal Spe­cial­ist and at­tor­ney Judy Daniel, as deputy chair­man to­geth­er with re­tired banker Nigel Ra­mano and said that two oth­er mem­bers will be named soon. On Mon­day, the TTFA chal­lenged FI­FA's de­ci­sion through the Court and Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS) based in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, where the FI­FA head­quar­ters is lo­cat­ed.

How­ev­er, Wal­lace made it clear that his as­so­ci­a­tion was formed by an act of Par­lia­ment to serve the pub­lic in­ter­est in the na­tion.

He said, "That our re­la­tion­ship with FI­FA is vi­tal. We the du­ly elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive of the TTFA, can­not sim­ply ig­nore the de­ci­sion of the FI­FA, which seeks to im­pinge on our na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty and jeop­ar­dise foot­ball in T&T. We re­main, how­ev­er, com­mit­ted to work­ing con­struc­tive­ly with the FI­FA, and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in the in­ter­est of the sport and the in­ter­est of T&T."

In his video state­ment on Wednes­day he said: "It is for this rea­son that two evenings ago, I gave in­struc­tions to the TTFA At­tor­neys to file an ap­peal to the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sports (CAS), chal­leng­ing FI­FA's de­ci­sion to at­tempt to in­ter­fere with the day-to-day af­fairs of the TTFA. The At­tor­neys have con­firmed that this was done and that we have been as­signed a case num­ber (CAS 2020/A/6915).

"FI­FA and its pur­port­ed nor­mal­i­sa­tion com­mit­tee, head­ed by Hadad, had no stand­ing. Make no mis­take about it, we the du­ly and prop­er­ly elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive of the TTFA, re­main in charge of the as­so­ci­a­tion's busi­ness."

On­ly this week, the TTFA, through its lawyers Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew GW Gayle of­fi­cial­ly filed an ap­pli­ca­tion to chal­lenge FI­FA through the CAS af­ter pay­ing a fee of $1,000 Swiss Francs. It is ex­pect­ed to pay an­oth­er undis­closed amount for the ser­vice of the ar­bi­tra­tors.

Al­so on Wednes­day, Wal­lace sought to dis­miss claims the em­bat­tled foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion could face be­ing banned for chal­leng­ing the FI­FA.

The TTFA lawyers have pro­posed that Eng­lish­man Mark Hov­ell, a so­lic­i­tor from Man­ches­ter, Eng­land, be the sole ar­bi­tra­tor in their case against foot­ball’s world gov­ern­ing body FI­FA.

Hov­ell is a high­ly ex­pe­ri­enced sports lawyer and in­sol­ven­cy prac­ti­tion­er who spe­cialis­es in reg­u­la­to­ry, gov­er­nance, com­mer­cial and fi­nan­cial mat­ters, across all sports, both in the UK and across the world.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he sits reg­u­lar­ly as an ar­bi­tra­tor at the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport (CAS) and The FA's reg­u­la­to­ry com­mis­sions.

FI­FA has un­til April 14 to sub­mit their com­ments re­gard­ing the re­quest - whether they agree to a sole ar­bi­tra­tor de­cid­ing mat­ters and Hov­ell's ap­point­ment.

The lo­cal foot­ball boss said they are on­ly fol­low­ing the guide­lines of the FI­FA Statutes, which gives mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions the right to chal­lenge FI­FA if they feel wronged in a sit­u­a­tion. He made it clear he was not think­ing about fac­ing any sus­pen­sion for the ac­tions of the TTFA. How­ev­er, Wal­lace promised it would be an­oth­er mat­ter, if the TTFA should be banned for fol­low­ing the Statutes of the FI­FA, say­ing they will deal with that if and when it comes.

He told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions could face a dif­fer­ent ac­tion by FI­FA if they chal­lenge the world gov­ern­ing body through the lo­cal courts.