PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Chairman of FIFA’s normalisation committee for Trinidad football, Robert Hadad, says he has no vested interest in the local game and stakeholders should not expect any partiality.
In particular, Hadad stressed, neither the recently removed William Wallace administration nor their predecessors, the David John Williams regime, will receive any special treatment.
“I have a lot of respect for everybody … [but] you will always have the naysayers. I know that I’m never going to please everybody,” said the Trinidadian businessman.
“But I will need to be in touch with both parties because there are a lot of questions unanswered especially under the David John-Williams administration … so I want to have a proper working relationship with everybody.”
He added: “I can’t tell you I know one [administration] more than the other. I really only spoke to Mr Wallace [recently]. I’ve spoken to David a few times but nothing in depth, nothing to say he’s my buddy or my partner.
“I’m a very independent person and I would like to think everybody on my committee is in the same place.”
Hadad was last week named by football’s world governing body to oversee the committee which has been given charge of the T&T Football Association for the next two years.
The committee also comprises Judy Daniel who will serve as deputy chairperson along with Nigel Romano as an ordinary member, with FIFA expected to name a further two members after consultation with continental governing body, CONCACAF.
FIFA controversially disbanded the TTFA board last month after concluding the local governing body was “facing a very real risk of insolvency and illiquidity”.
Their move means that Wallace, who beat John-Williams in elections last November, was forced to step aside after just four months in charge.
But with the country currently under a ‘stay at home policy’ in the face of 89 recorded cases of the coronavirus and five deaths, Hadad said the normalisation’s work was in a “holding pattern”.
“We’re trying as much as possible, Nigel and myself and Judy also, sharing a lot of information and as much as we can to come up with our own plans,” Hadad said, adding he had liaised with Clinton Urling in Guyana, who had chaired a similar FIFA committee there six years ago.
“He has a lot of good information and we can probably reach out to him and get some information in the meantime. I’m planning to spend a lot of time on Skype and Zoom and have online discussions with these people but definitely we’re not going to be going to the office because it’s illegal and we’ve got to respect that, so we’re going to be in a holding pattern for a couple weeks.”
