Email
from Mr Santini to Mr Maestracci responding to Mr
Maestracci's
request for advice re:
The CSA, at the direction of
FIFA, asked the ASA to discipline the Districts that took court action
in Alberta, but the ASA declined on the basis that they do not have the
finances to undertake such discipline proceedings. You advised me that
this failure of the ASA to conduct such disciplinary proceedings will
cause FIFA to consider suspending the CSA from membership, unless the
CSA no proceeds to suspend the ASA.
Some quotes from the email:
In our view the four districts
are not members of the CSA, and we have so advised you of this on
previous occasions. As a result, we are of the view that the CSA has
complied with FIFA's instructions in this regard, in disciplining its
members.
...
We also wish to bring to your
attention once again the comments made by the Alberta Court of Appeal
in relation to the Voorhorst group, that sanctioning individuals for
accessing the courts may be considered contempt of court f\or
preventing access to justice.
...
In any event, I
expect that the ASA's defense to any attempted suspension will be that
they tried to discipline them and the courts stayed matters.
...
In our view,
because the ASA did take disciplinary proceedings against the
districts, it is arguable that the ASA did try to sanction them
however, for reasons unknown to us at present, the actions were stayed
by the courts. If this is the case, then we fail to see how the CSA can
say that the ASA has failed to enforce their by-laws and should be
subject to suspension. our interpretation of FIFA's letters leads us to
the conclusion that if these facts are made known to FIFA, that they
would be hard pressed to sanction the CSA for failing to enforce its
by-laws, especially if FIFA is lead to believe that the Alberta
situation can be resolved as a result of the recent election of the new
board at their democratically held ASA.
...
Dominique, I
respect your political intuition, and I know that I should limit my
opinion to legal matters only, however I cannot help but think that
nothing good can come from suspending the ASA (even if I thought you
had good grounds to do so), after everything they and the CSA have been
through.
It will be interesting to see what President Maestracci's political
intuition tells him. Will the President act against legal advice and
suspend the ASA, in my opinion violating his fiduciary responsibility
to the CSA, to ensure that the ASA is unable to vote at the CSA AGM?
If you are curious how President Maestracci presents the
'Alberta Situation' to FIFA. Read this email
and note para 1. Also read para 5 wherein he states that he has not yet
received a response from the ASA regarding the request for information
about the discipline hearings. Remember this email to FIFA was sent on
April 26th and he received the response from the ASA on April 14th.
This does not seem to be the type of letter one would expect the
President of the CSA to write to FIFA if he was looking after the best
interests of both the National association and one of its members.
I wonder if the FIFA has been forwarded a copy of the letter
the new ASA President recently sent to the CSA Board of Directors. In
that letter we find out that the ASA will be holding a hearing
into the allegations against Chris Billings. Hopefully during the
course of this hearing the legal advice sought by Charpentier et al
will be made available to the ASA. Assuming that the advice was paid
for by the ASA at the time it would seem proper. It would be
unfortunate if EMSA, CMSA or CSF members paid for the advice that
started this 'Alberta Situation'.
Added 2011.04.14
- Email from ASA board (Chen/Calvin) to CSA President Maestracci
Added 2011.04.26
- Email from CSA President Maestracci to FIFA
Added 2011.04.28
- Email from CSA Counsel to CSA President Maestracci
Added 2011.04.??
- Letter from ASA President (Ole Jacobsen) to CSA Board of Directors
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