Italian Serie A club, Genoa FC, could face disciplinary action after failing to meet a FIFA deadline with regards to a defaulted payment due to Trinidad and Tobago Pro League champion club, DIRECTV W Connection, over St Lucia international midfielder Zaine Pierre.
Pierre, who is now 21, joined Genoa in 2012 after two years with Connection where he played primarily with the youth team and made less than a handful of senior appearances. However, once the Italian outfit made the initial down payment for the St Lucian and acquired his international clearance, the club never completed his transfer fee.
On 21 April 2014, the FIFA Players Status Committee ruled on behalf of Connection and ordered Genoa to pay €125,000 (TT$985,600) plus five percent interest and costs for the legal proceedings by a deadline of 18 September 2014. Genoa was mandated to show proof of payment to FIFA.
Genoa allegedly failed to meet this deadline; and, as a result, the case is likely to be forwarded to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee.
At present, Pierre, who reportedly had two major operations since his move to Italy, is on loan with Serie C outfit, SF Aversa Normanna. He has twice appeared on the substitutes’ bench for Genoa since his transfer to Italy but never played for his employer.
“I’m one who takes my job really seriously,” Pierre told the St Lucia News Online, in an interview last month. “Even when I’m not playing, I’m studying, in all ways you can think of. Being out of the game these two years made me angry, made me develop that hunger to prove something… “I just keep working as I always do… because the football is tough, really tough. It’s ‘Go hard or go home.’”
Connection is due an additional payment if Pierre appears in Serie A for Genoa.