The William Wallace-led Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) is challenging FIFA’s decision to appoint a normalisation committee in a move that could see the matter appear the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

They have retained the services of noted attorneys Dr Emir Crowne and Matthew Gayle of New City Chambers to represent them in this regard.

"The current executive of the TTFA intends to challenge FIFA's appointment of a normalisation committee to oversee the affairs of the association and will seek whatever provisional measures are available to it to maintain the status quo until the matter is fairly adjudicated," Dr Crowne confirmed to Sportsmax.TV on Wednesday.

Wallace unseated David John-Williams at the TTFA elections held in November 2019 after a contentious campaign over several issues, including the handling of the FA’s financial affairs. However, just months later the new leadership have found themselves facing the scrutiny of the world governing body, who have decided to intervene.

In a letter sent by FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura, TTFA General Secretary Ramesh Ramdhan, FIFA outlined their concerns about the financial status of the TTFA.

FIFA said its fact-finding mission found, among other concerns, that the “overall condition of financial management and financial governance extremely low or non-existent at the TTFA.

“There are currently no formal internal policies and internal controls in place, such as procurement, the delegation of financial authorities, financial planning and budgeting, effective oversight of funding and management reporting, which are necessary to meet the TTFA’s objectives.”

FIFA also said there is a lack of documented policies and procedures, financial planning and management of statutory liabilities adding that there no short or long-term plan to address the “urgent” situation.

Going further, FIFA expressed the concern that given the situation along with the USD$5.5m debt, the TTFA “faces a very real risk of both insolvency and illiquidity if corrective measures are not applied urgently.”

As such, the normalisation committee has been mandated to run the daily affairs of the TTFA, establish a debt repayment plan that is implementable by the TTFA, as well as review and amend the TTFA statutes and ensure their compliance with FIFA statutes and requires before submitting them to the TTFA Congress for approval.

The committee will also organize and conduct elections of a new TTFA executive for a four-year term.