Ramdhan wants CFU support against FIFA’s Normalisation Committee

GENERAL SECRETARY of the TT Football Association (TTFA), Ramesh Ramdhan, is urging the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and its individual bodies to support the local governing body in their fight against FIFA’s establishment of a Normalisation Committee.

On Tuesday, FIFA decided to set up the Committee, led by TTFA’s finance manager Tyril Patrick, and scrap the TTFA executive led by William Wallace, due to mounting debts which was allegedly incurred during the regime of Wallace’s predecessor David John-Williams.

Ramdhan, in a message to his CFU colleagues on Thursday, wrote, “(TTFA) has responded by challenging the legality of this decision with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) because we view this decision as wrong, biased and unjust.

“On multiple occasions during site visits by FIFA official Veron Mosengo-Omba (at the controversial Home of Football project in Balmain, Couva), TTFA board members brought to FIFA’s attention the mismanagement of the project and TTFA finances generally,” Ramdhan continued.

“These warnings were repeatedly ignored by Mosengo-Omba whose stock response was that this was ‘an internal TTFA matter that FIFA would not intervene in’ and that FIFA was satisfied with the then administration’s financial management.”

Ramdhan also accused FIFA of refusing to grant funding to the Wallace administration, which came into office on November 24, 2019.

“The reason for plunging the Association under normalisation control existed throughout the tenure of the previous regime with the apparent blessings of certain operatives within FIFA,” Ramdhan alleged. “We were denied funding legitimately due to member associations despite satisfying all requisite conditions, which lends to the suspicion that this is politically motivated.”

For his CFU colleagues, Ramdhan said, “We urge you not to stand aside and look. Let your voices resonate across the Atlantic. I humbly ask that you join with us as one voice and strongly condemn this high-handed action by writing FIFA and CONCACAF as we pursue justice from the CAS, to whom we have lodged an appeal. This can be the ‘dawn of a new era’ in Caribbean football.”