EMBATTLED TT Football Association (TTFA) president William Wallace and his executive have given the football body’s bankers, First Citizens Bank, until Thursday to restore their unfettered access to their accounts.
Attorneys for Wallace and his executive also want, by that date, for the bank “extricate itself from this most improper role” of appointing itself as “an informal arbiter” between them and the FIFA-appointed normalisation committee.
Attorney Mathew Gayle for the embattled TTFA executive wrote to the bank’s attorneys on Wednesday with the demands and threatened legal action if they do not respond.
Wallace and his team have been at loggerheads with the bank over its accounts.
Gayle said his clients have been unable to access the bank’s online facilities.
The executive was removed on March 17 by FIFA who in turn set up a normalisation committee due to mounting debts accumulated by the TTFA.
In a letter, on Monday, to the TTFA staff, Wallace wrote, “FIFA is now preparing to release funding to the TTFA that it has thus far refused to release prior to the purported appointment of the normalisation committee. “For your peace of mind in these difficult times, as soon as I am notified by the general secretary (Ramesh Ramdhan) and/or First Citizens of the receipt of the monies from FIFA, I will take the necessary steps to ensure you are paid as owed,” Wallace told staff.
Gayle, in his letter on Wednesday, told FCB’s attorneys it was regrettable that the bank has sought to insert itself in the ongoing dispute between Wallace and his team and FIFA.
He said the bank had “no legitimate or reliable source of the facts and progress of the dispute.”
“All that is relevant, so far as the relationship between my client and yours, is that the TTFA has an established means of electing its executive officers, as well as an established means for those officers to demit office,” he said, again pointing out that the executive was elected in November and have not demitted office.
Gayle said the bank ought to have established policies to decide who has proper control of the TTFA’s accounts.
He said there was no basis on which it could legitimately surmise that there has been a change in the status quo.
Gayle said the bank will be in breach of its duties and obligations to his client if the executive is prevented from accessing and operating the body’s accounts.
He also said the executive does not have full access to the TTFA’s bank account information. He also asked for bank statements and access to online banking facilities.
Gayle warned that the bank will be at fault if it fails to permit access to the accounts.
He said it appeared that the bank’s overriding concern was to protect itself from adverse publicity and not ensuring it maintained the fidelity and integrity of its relationship with the TTFA’s executive.
On Monday, businessman Robert Hadad, who was appointed chairman of the normalising committee, said Wallace and his executive had control of the bank account now and they will await the hearing of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).