KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: Trinidad and Tobago’s defiant football association bosses are running out of rope in their attempt to prevent FIFA imposing a normalisation committee.

The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association and world federation have been at loggerheads since March after the latter dissolved the executive of the cash-strapped association and sought to impose a temporary admnistration.

Angry TTFA president William Wallace took the protest to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but then withdrew because of the financial implications.

Next Wallace went to the local High Court which did grant an interim order in his favour. This was in the face of FIFA opposition.

Indeed, the very fact that FIFA was even represented was controversial and a sign of its concern because the world federation’s own statutes prohibit football bodies from taking disputes to the civil courts.

The problem for the TTFA is that a near-bankrupt body is now in even more dire straits: FIFA funding has been suspended since the row erupted and Trinidadian football will be in an even worse state without world federation grants in these coronavirus times.

Sports Minister Shamfa Cudjoe has warned that there will be no public money available to bale out the TTFA if it loses its fight with FIFA.

Ideally Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, hopes to have all 211 member associations present and correct at the video-streamed annual congress on September 18. That means a solution needs to be found to his Trinidad torment.

The ball is in Wallace’s court but FIFA is under pressure of its own to meet him halfway. TTFA allegations of bullying make for unpleasant headlines.

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