Robert Hadad, chairman of the FIFA-installed Normalisation Committee, will move full-speed ahead to ensure that an order given by the local football members to prepare for the election of a new executive by March 18 is carried out.
This order came following an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the T&T Football Association (TTFA) on Saturday at the Home of Football in Balmain, Couva, in which a motion was moved 20-5 in favour of the normalisation committee completing the mandate given by FIFA, and fresh elections are called.
The membership of the TTFA, which was represented by 25 out of the 47 members, has also called for constitutional reform.
Hadad said on Sunday that he intends to follow the constitution, but will await directives from the sport’s world governing body, FIFA, on how they will move.
He is set to meet with FIFA officials Monday to give an update on what transpired at the weekend.
“If FIFA wants me to stay then they will have to address the membership,” Hadad said.
Hadad, in his term in office, along with other members, has not had the best of times. He has been accused of mismanagement and failure to achieve the mandate given to him by the FIFA in March 2020 and despite being given an extension to March 2023, he is again being hounded out of office.
On March 17, 2020, FIFA appointed a normalisation committee for the TTFA in accordance with Art. 8 par. 2 of the FIFA Statutes that followed a fact-finding mission to assess the financial situation of TTFA. From this mission, it was found that there were extremely low overall financial management methods, combined with massive debt, that placed the TTFA at a real risk of insolvency and illiquidity.
As such a normalisation committee was appointed to achieve the mandate of running the TTFA’S daily affairs; to establish a debt repayment plan that is implementable by the TTFA; to review and amend the TTFA Statutes (and other regulations where necessary) and to ensure their compliance with the FIFA Statutes and requirements before duly submitting them for approval to the TTFA Congress; as well as to organise and to conduct elections of a new TTFA Executive Committee for a four-year mandate.
Hadad was quizzed on when he believes the work of the normalisation committee will be concluded, said he does not have a clue, based on a number of unsolved arrangements.
“The financial arrangement is not finalised so the debt has not been paid, so the facts are that we still have two court matters pending with Terry Fenwick and Peter Miller.
“Now maybe they’re thinking that they can manage the process from here on and maybe they’re right, but the trustee (Maria Daniel) will have to address that situation because at the end of the day the way, I read the bankruptcy and insolvency act, the trustee must not only pay the debt but must form the organisation, so the organisation, the methods of procurement, the accounting systems and the manner in which they about it must be dealt with,” Hadad said.
He noted: “I have no direction as yet from FIFA because what the members have done is to say it has to be done by March 18, unless the constitutional reform can be done whilst the new ex-co is in place.
“I have to leave by March 18, if that’s what the members want. If they want an election then my last day is March 18, that is a fact because I will follow the constitution, I have to follow the constitution.”
SOURCE: T&T Guardian