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WORK TO DO STILL: Normalisation committee chairman Robert Hadad addressing the audience at Monday’s launch of the T&T Premier League at the Hyatt Regency hotel, Port of Spain on Monday, February 6th 2023.
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The membership of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association have another big decision to make on Saturday. It concerns whether or not to rescind the motion carried at the last Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on December 10, to hold presidential elections on March 18.

TTFA members have been given notice of the meeting which is scheduled to take place at the Home of Football from 10 a.m.

On December 10, the TTFA held an EGM where the majority of the delegates voted for a set date for new elections. Four voted against and two abstained.

However, Robert Hadad, chairman of the normalisation committee (NC) appointed by world governing body FIFA in March 2020, to address the TTFA’s massive debt situation as part of a wider mandate, says the EGM is necessary “for the stakeholders to understand that FIFA is not approving us having an election on March 18. FIFA at the end of the day wants all of the mandate to be completed and a part of the mandate is the payment of the debt and constitutional reform.”

In a January 20 letter to Hadad, FIFA’s Chief Member Associations officer Kenny Jean-Marie stated: ”FIFA expects the TTFA to ensure that the mandate of the normalisation committee is carried out and fulfilled in strict compliance with the decision of the Bureau of the FIFA Council ­— with the last task being the organisation of elections.

Therefore, if the TTFA´s normalisation committee convenes the requested Extraordinary General Meeting, before all tasks assigned to them have been accordingly carried out, this would go against the mandate of the normalisation committee established by the Bureau of the FIFA Council.

“Please be advised that should the elections be held before all other tasks are completed, we would be obliged to submit the matter to our relevant decision-making body for further consideration and possible decisions based on the FIFA Statutes.”

Asked Monday what would happen if the membership upheld the motion to stage elections next month, Hadad said: “...we will have a problem with FIFA I am guessing...FIFA will not support anyone rushing them into an election.”

For the motion to be changed, at least 50 per cent of the membership at the meeting must vote in favour. Fifty per cent of the TTFA’s 47 member-delegates are also required to be at the EGM for there to be a quorum.

The NC’s term extended by a year, is due to conclude at the end of March. However, Hadad pointed out that the committee still had outstanding matters to deal with.

“We still have to complete the debt repayment exercise. We’ve had some issues (that) slowed down the whole process and the financier has to give us the loan agreement and then we have to execute on it; we have to pay all the creditors. Whether all of that can be done by the end of March, I’m not sure.

By court order, the NC is required to pay the TTFA’s creditors by March 23.

“In addition to that, we still have constitutional reform to do, so I am sitting in the wings, waiting to hear from FIFA. That’s a decision for FIFA as to where we go next.” Haddad added however, that, “the direction given to me thus far has not indicated that anybody is talking about an extension.”


SOURCE: T&T Express