T&T Football: Nakhid cries sabotage after spoilt FIFA nomination
SportsMax
Daivd Nakhid, the former Trinidad and Tobago midfielder, who is seeking to replace Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA, is crying foul after his bid was thrown out because of a spoilt nomination.
Nakhid’s aspirations were thrown for a loop when it was revealed that one of his five nominations, the United States Virgin Islands, had already nominated another candidate.
Under FIFA’s electoral rules, that renders both nominations invalid.
Nahkid, speaking with Digicel SportsMax’s SportsMax Zone, first of all, believes the rule that has deemed him ineligible for the presidential runoff, in this particular instance, runs contrary to the fairness of the democratic process.
“When you look at the circumstances, the electoral committee, by the very nature of their existence, is to ensure fair and transparent elections and that the process is held to the highest standards,” Nakhid said.
Those standards, Nahkid said were breached by the committee, which he claims asked him to urge the United States Virgin Islands to send their letter of support at the last minute.
According to Nakhid, the group must have known that the USVI had already supported a bid for nomination.
“If they were aware that USVI had already sent a nomination they breached their own ethics.”
“It’s obviously an undermining of the electoral process,” said Nakhid, explaining that FIFA contacted his team to let them know the USVI letter had not been received by the World Governing Body.
That fact, Nakhid said, sent alarm bells ringing in his head because FIFA’s actions prove they must have been aware of another bid from the USVI.
That being said, Nakhid is appealing the decision to leave him out of the FIFA presidential race.
“We have launched an appeal. Not against Hilaren, he knows what he did, against the electoral committee because they were quite aware, up until the 23rd, that the United States Virgin Islands had already submitted a bid for nomination.”
Nakhid went on to point out that the Caribbean had been disenfranchised by the actions of someone from within the region’s boundaries, something that, he says, happens too often.
“The Caribbean people have been cut short of a voice by one of our own,” Nakhid remonstrated.
The person Nakhid refers to is USVI President Hillaren Frederick, who he says never told his team he had voted for another person to be nominated.
“In the last hours of the nomination he submitted a bid in order to sabotage our candidacy,” Nakhid alleges, throwing out Frederick’s response to the news of Nakhid’s ousting. Frederick said he was unaware of the article in FIFA’s electoral process that negates associations bidding for more than one candidate.
“Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, they spoke about this. In our midst we would have house slaves. People who will basically sell out their people for little or no patronage and this is what we have with the United States Virgin Islands,” an obviously angry Nakhid said.
“Never had he mentioned to us that he had voted for someone and it was done in such a surreptitious way and we have all the emails and all the evidence.”