Abnormal normalisation?

THE NEED to focus on the covid19 pandemic has taken some of the oxygen out of the highly combative situation that has developed with FIFA and the TT Football Association (TTFA). FIFA has invoked its powers to appoint a “normalisation committee” to run local football, while the TTFA has resisted, retaining lawyers, and reportedly filing proceedings before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Whatever the intricacies of the law, the situation represents a low point for local football and a deep embarrassment for TT as a nation. It does little to further our international reputation or inspire our next generation of footballers. But in fairness to the recently installed TTFA executive, they are being given a raw deal. They have been in office just three months. There will be a heavy burden and expectation on them to effect change.

The very name of the FIFA committee speaks volumes. It suggests an alarming degree of irregularity, irregularity that apparently could not be overcome by more sedate action. It will be instructive for the arbitrators, or indeed any other judicial body that might otherwise review this mater, to untangle the degree of warning afforded to local officials, and whether there was adequate opportunity to respond to adverse findings. The conduct of local officials, entrusted with a body that has benefitted from millions in State funding over the years, will also be thrown into harsh relief.

While the current developments are unsettling, if not hard to accept, it cannot be denied things have been abnormal in local football for a long time now. We moved from being a country that made history – becoming the smallest nation to ever qualify for the World Cup in Germany in 2006 – to one in which our top football officials were embroiled in an international corruption scandal which is still playing itself out in courtrooms around the world, as demonstrated by fresh details unveiled by the US Department of Justice in relation to Jack Warner, who has been fighting extradition to that country for years.

The fall of figures like Warner was shocking, but so too was the spectre of court bailiffs, at one stage, levying football assets to apply against an unsettled debt. Last year’s High Court ruling, in which a judge had to order a freeze on bank accounts, was just one in a string of ominous portents. What a pity.

It has all scuttled what little prestige our name once held in the world of football.

A key issue that will have to be settled in any legal proceedings will be the standing of ousted TTFA officials. FIFA’s appointment of a normalisation committee is hardly unprecedented (we join the likes of countries such as Kuwait, Guinea, Guatemala, Greece, Argentina, Thailand, Mali, Benin, Ghana, Uruguay and Cameroon). But the appointment of the committee raises a logical question: Whom do the ousted officials speak for if FIFA has replaced them?

Whatever the answer, the timing of all of this, as we seek to carry out the delicate task of rebuilding local football, could not be worse.