Lawyers representing William Wallace and the ousted executive of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) were today granted permission to serve documents o FIFA pertaining to their case against them to be heard in the Trinidad and Tobago High Court.
The High Court granted permission a day after said lawyers notified the Court of Arbitration for Sport that they were withdrawing their appeal against FIFA’s decision to appoint a normalization committee to govern the affairs of the TTFA, citing concerns of institutional bias in favour of the world-governing body.
Since FIFA is not a situated in Trinidad and Tobago, the lawyers had to seek permission to serve documents on football’s world governing body by email or courier service pursuant to Part 7.2(b) of the Civil Proceedings Rules.
The lawyers have filed a claim before the High Court seeking a permanent injunction to prevent FIFA from interfering or seeking to override the “fair and transparent democratic processes of the TTFA and/or preventing them from removing the executive of duly elected officers from office.”
They are also seeking a permanent injunction against FIFA preventing FIFA and/or its agents from interfering with the day-to-day management of the association, including its bank accounts, website and real property.
They are also seeking damages and costs.
Acting on instructions, the lawyers from the firm New City Chambers notified CAS on Monday that they were withdrawing because of what they said was institutional bias in favour of FIFA leaving them to believe they would not be able to get a fair hearing.
Wallace described the ongoing dispute with FIFA as a battle against injustice in a video that was circulated on Monday.
In the video that is just over five minutes long, Wallace said since 2005, FIFA has appointed normalisation committees to run the affairs of 33 associations. The TTFA is the only one that was normalized and their officers were not culpable for the reasons given by FIFA.
He explained that when the previous administration went into office in 2015, the TTFA had accrued debts of TT$15 million. By the time they were defeated in the elections held in November 2019, the debt had ballooned to TT$50 million.
“But more than the debt, the main reason that there was a lack of financial structures in the organisation is passing strange in that FIFA, in every single year would do an audit of the TTFA and the audit did not reveal the lack of internal fiscal policy and systems in the organisation,” Wallace said.
“And, it is only when we pointed it out to them that they actually used that same thing to make a decision to remove us from office.”