There’s a new twist to the sta­tus mat­ter of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege star play­er Der­rel “Zoom Zoom” Gar­cia as the Sec­ondary School Foot­ball League (SS­FL) has de­cid­ed to seek le­gal ad­vice from Sports lawyer Ty­rone Mar­cus be­fore go­ing for­ward with its de­ci­sion. 

From all in­di­ca­tions, the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee of the SS­FL ap­pears re­luc­tant to give their ver­dict fol­low­ing last Thurs­day’s meet­ing. 

A let­ter to prin­ci­pals yes­ter­day stat­ed: “Please be in­formed that the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League has sought le­gal ad­vice from Mr Ty­rone Mar­cus on the bona fide sta­tus of Mas­ter Der­rel Gar­cia of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege. On re­ceipt of the said le­gal ad­vice, it shall be sub­mit­ted to the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee for its con­sid­er­a­tion.” 

This lat­est de­ci­sion by the SS­FL means that the play­ers, staff, and sup­port­ers of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege will have to wait a lit­tle longer to know if they can fi­nal­ly cel­e­brate the 2024 SS­FL Boys’ Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion ti­tle or if the school will be stripped of its ti­tle ho­n­ours. 

The SS­FL dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee, led by chair­man Adesh Dwari­ka and com­pris­ing Lawrence Seep­er­sad and Kurt Har­ry, met on No­vem­ber 15 to ex­am­ine the leg­i­bil­i­ty sta­tus of Gar­cia, who was deemed to not be prop­er­ly reg­is­tered with the school un­til Oc­to­ber 8, 2024, fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) last month.

Gar­cia’s stu­dent sta­tus be­came a con­cern fol­low­ing so­cial me­dia ru­mours that he missed his full Form Three af­ter his par­ents took him out of school so that he could at­tend a foot­ball in­tern­ship at an acad­e­my in Spain. 

When Guardian Me­dia Sports con­tact­ed SS­FL pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les last Fri­day for an up­date on the meet­ing, he said that the SS­FL has to fol­low pro­to­col in this and every mat­ter, and as soon as he can say some­thing on the mat­ter, he will no­ti­fy every­one. 

Fol­low­ing a re­quest from the SS­FL to the MOE last month for in­for­ma­tion about Gar­cia’s stu­dent sta­tus, the SS­FL was in­formed of the MOE find­ings.

Dwari­ka’s com­mit­tee has so far ex­am­ined the con­cerns out­lined by the MOE: 

• Der­rel Gar­cia was as­signed to St Bene­dict’s Col­lege through the SEA 2021 place­ment and reg­is­tered at the school on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2021;

• Gar­cia’s par­ents re­quest­ed study leave from Au­gust 2023 to May 2024 for him to pro­ceed on a foot­ball schol­ar­ship;

• For the aca­d­e­m­ic year Sep­tem­ber 2023 to Ju­ly 2024, he was ab­sent for the en­tire pe­ri­od;

• On Sep­tem­ber 25, 2024, the par­ents of Der­rel Gar­cia wrote re­quest­ing his re­in­state­ment;

• Der­rel Gar­cia re­sumed at­ten­dance at St Bene­dict’s Col­lege on Oc­to­ber 8, 2024, ver­i­fied by the At­ten­dance Reg­is­ter at the school. 

The dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee is guid­ed by SS­FL Ar­ti­cle 16 (Cri­te­ria for Reg­is­tra­tion), which states: Be­fore stu­dents can be ac­cept­ed by the League to be reg­is­tered as play­ers to rep­re­sent any team play­ing in the League, the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria must be ful­filled: (1) Stu­dents must be du­ly reg­is­tered, ac­cord­ing to the ex­ist­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and on the of­fi­cial roll of the school pre­sent­ing the team. These stu­dents must at­tend class­es at that school dur­ing nor­mal school hours. 

The penal­ty for in­fringe­ment of the above is sus­pen­sion of the school from fur­ther com­pe­ti­tion in the di­vi­sion for the re­main­der of the sea­son.

Gar­cia did not play in the school’s five match­es in Sep­tem­ber and showed up on Oc­to­ber 2, in which St Bene­dict’s de­feat­ed San Juan Sec­ondary 1-0; he al­so played on Oc­to­ber 5, when St Bene­dict’s whipped Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, 3-1; and on Oc­to­ber 7, a resched­uled fix­ture, which St Bene­dict’s al­so won against St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, 2-1. 

He did not score against San Juan but scored twice against Fa­ti­ma at the Ma­haica Oval in Point Fortin and once against St An­tho­ny’s in West­moor­ings. 

Ac­cord­ing to the MOE find­ings, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege faces be­ing de­duct­ed nine points and nine goals for the three match­es, which will give Fa­ti­ma the ti­tle and move Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do in­to sec­ond place. 

This is the sec­ond mat­ter that the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee has been asked to de­lib­er­ate on for the 2024 sea­son. In Oc­to­ber, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary was pe­nalised af­ter Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary protest­ed their use of two il­le­gal play­ers.