A four-man ar­bi­tra­tion com­mit­tee of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) up­held a rul­ing by its Dis­ci­pli­nary and Ap­peals Com­mit­tees to strip St Bene­dict’s Col­lege of its Pre­mier Di­vi­sion ti­tle for us­ing strik­er Der­rel Gar­cia, who was deemed to be im­prop­er­ly reg­is­tered dur­ing the 2024 sea­son.

The com­mit­tee of William Wal­lace, chair­man An­tho­ny Creed, Ruben Han­sraj, and Theophilus Trim heard ar­gu­ments from prin­ci­pal Gre­go­ry Quan Kep, foot­ball team man­ag­er Ravi Ram­goolam, and their le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive Christo­pher Brath­waite but con­clud­ed af­ter­ward that the school’s at­ten­dance record of Gar­cia was suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to make a de­ci­sion.

Two times be­fore, the St Bene­dict’s trio ap­peared be­fore the Dis­ci­pli­nary and Ap­peals Com­mit­tees, con­tend­ing that Gar­cia’s re­turn to school af­ter more than a year out of the school sys­tem and un­know­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was Sep­tem­ber 30. How­ev­er, it ap­peared he did not at­tend class­es un­til he was first picked up on the at­ten­dance reg­is­ter at school on Oc­to­ber 8.

All three com­mit­tees were made to fol­low the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed af­ter is­sues were raised about Gar­cia’s leave of ab­sence to at­tend a foot­ball schol­ar­ship with a Span­ish sports acad­e­my be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2023 and Ju­ly 2024.

In­for­ma­tion about the play­er’s leave from the school and sub­se­quent re­turn was in­ter­cept­ed by a high-rank­ing Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cial, who or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, it did not re­ceive any in­for­ma­tion about the play­er’s leave of ab­sence from St Bene­dict’s Col­lege for the pe­ri­od in ques­tion.

A three-page re­port from the ar­bi­tra­tion Fri­day re­vealed: “In the SS­FL Con­sti­tu­tion: Ar­ti­cle 16 (i) Stu­dents must be du­ly reg­is­tered ac­cord­ing to the ex­ist­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions of the MOE (ii) Stu­dents must be on the of­fi­cial roll of the school (iii) Stu­dents must at­tend class­es at the school dur­ing nor­mal school hours.” Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the le­gal opin­ion of Mr. Ty­rone Mar­cus is that Gar­cia has sat­is­fied 1 and 2 of the con­sti­tu­tion based on the MOE let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 9th, 2024. As a con­se­quence, ev­i­dence needs to be es­tab­lished for (iii).”

It not­ed fur­ther: “Fur­ther find­ings by the Ar­bi­tra­tion Com­mit­tee from ques­tions and doc­u­ments: 1. Copy of the class reg­is­ter/roll signed and stamped by the Prin­ci­pal of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege and coun­ter­signed by the School Su­per­vi­sor III, Mr Shel­don Jod­ha, that Gar­cia’s pres­ence on the com­pound on Sep­tem­ber 30 is not cap­tured in the class reg­is­ter, which is an of­fi­cial/le­gal doc­u­ment, as shown in the reg­is­ter with a line through the pe­ri­od ab­sent up to Oc­to­ber 7. Usu­al­ly, when a stu­dent is at­tend­ing school but is ab­sent on any giv­en day, a “0” is put in the col­umn. The line is an in­di­ca­tor that the stu­dent was out for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

“The state­ment from the St Bene­dict’s Col­lege rep that Gar­cia was is­sued a play­er’s ID months in ad­vance, which val­i­dat­ed his sta­tus, may be er­ro­neous since there is ev­i­dence that Gar­cia was is­sued an ID for the 2024 sea­son on Oc­to­ber 4, as shown in the What­sApp ex­changes be­tween the of­fice as­sis­tant at the SS­FL of­fice and Mr Ram­goolam.”

Ac­cord­ing to the four-man com­mit­tee, it al­so en­coun­tered some crit­i­cal ob­ser­va­tions that showed, “Prin­ci­pals are ex­pect­ed to con­tribute to the gov­er­nance of the League. When the school reg­is­ters a stu­dent to play in the League, there is an as­sump­tion that cer­tain ba­sic cri­te­ria, like at­ten­dance, which is con­trolled and mon­i­tored by the prin­ci­pal/his rep­re­sen­ta­tive via an of­fi­cial doc­u­ment, are in or­der. There is no rea­son, there­fore, to ask that all schools sub­mit at­ten­dance reg­is­ters un­less it is re­quired.

“(b) The is­sue of the school be­ing sin­gled out is not a fair as­sump­tion. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the League is trig­gered in var­i­ous ways. In this case, the ques­tions on Gar­cia’s sta­tus were in the pub­lic do­main and there­fore came to the at­ten­tion of the League, and the ques­tion was, since Gar­cia was away from school for one aca­d­e­m­ic year, whether the prac­ticed pro­to­col of re­in­state­ment was fol­lowed.

“(c) As ed­u­ca­tors, we are fa­mil­iar with the pro­to­col to fol­low when a stu­dent is away from school for a term, and in Gar­cia’s case he was away for one aca­d­e­m­ic year. It is there­fore fair to sur­mise that this would have trig­gered the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“(d) It should be not­ed that Gar­cia’s moth­er, by her let­ter to the prin­ci­pal dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 25 re­quest­ing his re­in­state­ment, seems to be quite aware of the pro­to­cols.”

In draw­ing its con­clu­sion, the re­port, which was signed by the com­mit­tee chair­man Creed, stat­ed the Ar­bi­tra­tion Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly sup­ports the de­ci­sion of the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee and is en­dorsed by the Ap­peals Com­mit­tee that St Bene­dict’s Col­lege was in breach of SS­FL Con­sti­tu­tion Ar­ti­cle 16 with the reg­is­tra­tion of play­er Der­rel Gar­cia, where­in the Ar­ti­cle ar­tic­u­lates ‘class at­ten­dance’ for the restart of class­es at school for Gar­cia, which was on Oc­to­ber 8, 2024.