FIFA, Guilty As Charged

"FIFA's claim that it remains neutral in matters of politics (within the sport) is demonstrated to be patently false", said Justice Carol Gobin. Her ruling could seriously damage FIFA’s governance model and authority.

By Philippe Auclair

It was widely expected that Trinidad & Tobago's High Court, the Caribbean country's supreme legal body, would find in favour of its suspended FA in the case it brought against FIFA, which Josimar has been covering in detail over the past seven months. So it did.

What no-one could suspect was that the 22-page judgment that Justice Carol Gobin delivered on Tuesday 13 October would be as scathing as it proved to be. In tone as in substance, FIFA had never been subjected to such an unequivocally critical (and potentially damaging, as we'll see) judgment in a court of law.

Justice Gobin did not mince her words. She adjudged FIFA to have made "a mockery of the proceedings". The normalisation order FIFA's GenSec Fatma Samoura had issued in March, less than four months after the new TTFA board had been democratically elected, had "an oblique motive", she said, and was "improper and made in bad faith". "The timing of removal of the new board after the troubling financial management had been allowed to continue and fester even with FIFA's annual audits and oversight makes [FIFA's chief Member Associations Officer] Veron Mosengo-Omba's claim that FIFA held its hand until after November elections to allow an opportunity for the incoming Board to address the serious issues even less credible". 

Then came the frontal blow. "The conclusion that [the normalisation order] was a contrivance to subvert the outcome of the [TTFA] November 24th elections [our italics] is in my view inescapable", she w...

You must be a subscriber to read this article

Josimar is entirely dependent on our subscribers to tell the stories from football that matter. Become a subscriber today!

Zeen is a next generation WordPress theme. It’s powerful, beautifully designed and comes with everything you need to engage your visitors and increase conversions.