n one corner, you have Gianni
Infantino: president of the billion
dollar world governing football
body, FIFA. In the other, a recently
retired school teacher, William
Wallace, whose organisation,
the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association
(TTFA), is functionally bankrupt.
If this were boxing, it would be difficult to get this
supposed mismatch sanctioned. And yet, six months
after FIFA threw the first blow by declaring that
Wallace had been removed as president – via
the Infantino-headed Bureau of the FIFA Council
- the TTFA president is still standing, to no small
embarrassment of FIFA’s.
Suspicious of the Court of Arbitration for Sport
(CAS), FIFA’s preferred referee, Wallace invited
A clumsy, chaotic
Caribbean coup
Gianni Infantino goes head-to-head with Trinidadian courts
Thrashed...T&T were
beaten 6-0 by USA at
last year’s Gold CupI
the governing body to see them in a Trinidad
courtroom instead. Their legal claim is that FIFA
has no authority to “normalise” the Trinidad and
Tobago association and eject its elected officers,
just four months after taking office.
Surprisingly, Infantino followed them to the Port
of Spain High Court. The result was seismic. It was
the mouse that roared.
“FIFA may yet have to justify its purported
assumption of extraordinary power to control the
day-to-day affairs of TTFA,” stated MadameJustice
Carol Gobin, in her ruling on August13.
“Moreover it is outwith the jurisdiction of an entity
incorporated under our legislation to agree to submit
to foreign law as FIFA Statutes prescribe...FIFA could
not presume to be above the law.”
FIFA has already lodged an appeal. Outside theTrinidad & Tobago
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