United TTFA wants court stop Sept 15 meeting

Attorneys representing the ousted TT Football Association (TTFA) executive have filed an injunction in the TT High Court to stop the September 15 Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of TTFA members which is being facilitated by the FIFA normalisation committee, headed by Robert Hadad.

This hearing is set for Monday.

The EGM has been adjudged “illegal” by the removed administration of president William Wallace and his deputies Clynt Taylor, Susan Joseph-Warrick and Joseph Sam Phillip, who are members of the United TTFA team that took over the helm of the TTFA at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in November 2019.

However, the executive was removed by FIFA and replaced by the normalisation committee on March 17 owing to mounting TTFA debt and "a very real risk of insolvency and illiquidity."

Wallace and his executive are challenging their removal.

The September 15 meeting was called to address United TTFA's contentious High Court battle against FIFA. The world governing body insists the Court of Arbitration for Sport is the sole body authorised to handle disputes between FIFA and Member Associations.

The injunction, which was filed on Friday, seeks to prohibit FIFA and/or the normalisation committee from “taking any further steps to convene and/or conduct any meeting, on September 15, 2020 or any other date, which purports to be an Extraordinary General Meeting of the claimant (TTFA).

United TTFA also responded to an August 26 FIFA letter to the normalisation committee instructing them to warn United TTFA that the local governing body would face disciplinary proceedings if it did not withdraw the claim against FIFA in the local court by September 16.

The injunction seeks to stop the “instructing and/or directing any person or persons to seek to withdraw the instant claim and/or in any way, manner of fashion from interfering with or seeking to undermine, the instant proceedings, except by way of lawful representations made by the defendant’s (FIFA) duly appointed attorneys-at-law or other lawful intervention”.

It also seeks to stop the normalisation committee from “making use of and/or publication of the claimant’s official logo, letterhead and stamp/seal” but affirms the defendant “pay the costs of this application”.