Thurs­day is the day St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege will know if they can cel­e­brate as the 2024 cham­pi­ons Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) in the Boy’s Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion and if the school main­tains its top-seed­ing in the In­ter­Col tour­na­ment.

The SS­FL Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee chaired by Adesh Dwari­ka, and com­pris­ing Lawrence Seep­er­sad and Kurt Har­ry will ex­am­ine the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege star play­er Der­rel “Zoom Zoom” Gar­cia af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) found that he was not prop­er­ly reg­is­tered in the school sys­tem at the start of the 2024-2025 school year in Sep­tem­ber. In fact, his first day on the school roll call was Oc­to­ber 8, 2024.

His sta­tus as a stu­dent, ac­cord­ing to the MOE find­ings and the rules of the SS­FL for play­ers, ap­pears to have been breached af­ter his par­ents made a let­ter re­quest for study leave on Ju­ly 7, 2023, to at­tend a foot­ball in­tern­ship pro­gram at an acad­e­my in Spain from Au­gust 2023 to May 2024, which af­fect­ed his reg­is­tra­tion sta­tus at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege for this aca­d­e­m­ic term. He al­so did not at­tend class­es for the en­tire Form 3 aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Dwari­ka’s com­mit­tee will ex­am­ine the fol­low­ing MOE find­ings:

• 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.

Mean­while, SS­FL Ar­ti­cle 16 clear­ly states:

Cri­te­ria for Reg­is­tra­tion: 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.

When St. Bene­dict’s sub­mit­ted its list of play­ers to the SS­FL in Au­gust for the 2024 sea­son, while Gar­cia’s name was on the list of 18 play­ers, he was not in school.

In fact, a de­c­la­ra­tion state­ment on the reg­is­tra­tion list reads: “I am sat­is­fied that the above-named play­ers are full-time stu­dents of this in­sti­tu­tion and that he/she is not reg­is­tered with or par­tic­i­pat­ing in any oth­er full-time ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­gram. I wish to in­di­cate by af­fix­ing my sig­na­ture to this reg­is­tra­tion that the in­for­ma­tion giv­en above is true.” The doc­u­ment which pos­sess the school’s of­fi­cial stamp is al­so signed by the school’s act­ing prin­ci­pal Gre­go­ry Quan Kep. 

Ac­cord­ing to the MOE find­ings, St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege faces be­ing de­duct­ed nine points and nine goals for the three match­es Gar­cia played be­fore be­ing a stu­dent on the roll on Oc­to­ber 8, which will give Fa­ti­ma the ti­tle and move Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do in­to sec­ond place and drop St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege to third place.

The SS­FL Rule 16 al­so states that 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 fea­ture in any of the St. Bene­dict’s first five match­es played on Sep­tem­ber 11, 14, 18, 21, and 28, 2024. His par­ents on­ly made a re­quest for him to re­turn to school on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2024, and his first day of school was Oc­to­ber 8, 2024.

How­ev­er, be­fore be­ing a stu­dent on the roll, Gar­cia played against San Juan Sec­ondary on Oc­to­ber 2 and won 1-0. He played against Fa­ti­ma Col­lege on Oc­to­ber 5 (St. Bene­dict’s won 3-1), and he played in a resched­uled fix­ture against St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege on Oc­to­ber 7, and St. Bene­dict’s won 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. 

St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege end­ed the league cam­paign on No­vem­ber 1, af­ter a 1-0 win over St. Mary’s Col­lege be­hind Gar­cia’s goal to fin­ish with 41 points from an un­beat­en sea­son run that saw them draw two match­es from the 15 con­test­ed to win the league by six points more than the 2023 cham­pi­on Fa­ti­ma.

Gar­cia, the lead­ing con­tender for the League’s Gold­en Boots Award with 17 goals, is al­so fac­ing hav­ing his goal-tal­ly re­duced to 14.

A ma­jor con­cern for the SS­FL is how the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee will af­fect the cur­rent In­ter­Col tour­na­ment be­cause St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege was the top seed in South and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege was the sec­ond seed­ed team. The South In­ter­Col se­mi-fi­nals are sched­uled for to­mor­row.

Lat­est SS­FL Boys Pre­mier Di­vi­sion stand­ings

Pld Teams P W D L F A Pts

1. St Bene­dict’s 15 13 2 0 36 7 41

2. Fa­ti­ma 15 11 2 2 46 14 35

3. Pre­sen­ta­tion 15 11 2 2 33 10 35

4. St An­tho­ny’s 15 10 0 5 36 20 30

5. Ari­ma North 14 6 6 2 24 11 24

6. Na­pari­ma 15 6 4 5 26 19 22

7. QRC 15 6 3 6 22 21 21

8. Mal­ick 15 6 2 7 30 32 20

9. San Juan North 15 6 1 8 24 28 19

10. Sig­nal Hill 14 5 3 6 22 26 16

11. St Mary’s 15 5 1 9 17 29 16

12. St Au­gus­tine 15 4 3 8 11 32 15

13. Trin­i­ty East 15 4 1 10 19 29 13

14. Spey­side 14 3 3 8 19 30 12

15. East Mu­cu­rapo 14 3 0 11 10 25 9

16. Mir­a­cle Min­istries 15 2 1 12 8 51 7