Fresh off the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Dis­ci­pli­nary and Ap­peals Com­mit­tees sanc­tion­ing St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary School sev­en points for us­ing an un­reg­is­tered play­er, Shum­ba Cud­joe, and a sus­pend­ed play­er, Aaden Ma­haraj, the SS­FL ex­ec­u­tive is now con­tem­plat­ing how it will ad­dress the Der­rel Gar­cia mat­ter, and how it will af­fect the rep­u­ta­tion of the SS­FL and St Bene­dict's Col­lege's cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Last month, the SS­FL wrote to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) about Der­rel Gar­cia's stu­dent el­i­gi­bil­i­ty sta­tus for 2023/2024 in keep­ing with its cri­te­ria for reg­is­tra­tion af­ter ru­mours were swirling around that he was not at­tend­ing school be­cause he was one of sev­er­al young tal­ent­ed foot­ballers from Trinidad and To­ba­go who were en­rolled in a foot­ball In­tern­ship pro­gramme at an acad­e­my in Spain in 2023/2024, and his sta­tus at St Bene­dict's Col­lege for this aca­d­e­m­ic term is in doubt.

The SS­FL will hold a gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing to­day at Cara­pichaima Sec­ondary School and while the St Bene­dict's mat­ter will not be on the agen­da, it is ex­pect­ed to be on the minds of the ex­ec­u­tive which is led by pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les.

While St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary was pe­nalised be­cause of a protest by Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, the SS­FL de­layed in act­ing on St Bene­dict's Col­lege be­cause the dai­ly stu­dent at­ten­dance reg­is­ter is not a doc­u­ment that the SS­FL can ac­cess, and most times the Cre­den­tial Com­mit­tee which is led by the SS­FL Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Aza­ad Mo­hammed-Khan has to re­ly on a protest to gain ac­cess from the school in ques­tion. No school has protest­ed Gar­cia's el­i­gi­bil­i­ty, how­ev­er, the Cre­den­tial Com­mit­tee does not need an of­fi­cial protest to in­ves­ti­gate a mat­ter that may be ad­verse to the league op­er­a­tions on the field.

There are two ques­tions that the MOE will have to an­swer for the SS­FL, first­ly on what date did Gar­cia restart school as a Form four stu­dent af­ter be­ing away from school for his Form three class­es and sec­ond­ly, why he did not fea­ture in any of the St Bene­dict's first six match­es played on Sep­tem­ber 11, 14, 18, 21, 25 and 28, 2024.

The first ques­tion high­lights his out­stand­ing per­for­mances on Oc­to­ber 2 and 5, 2024.

Gar­cia scored in al­most all of the nine match­es he played in Oc­to­ber and is the lead­ing con­tender for the League's Gold­en Boots Award with 17 goals. He scored the win­ner against St Mary's Col­lege which took his team to 41 points, six ahead of de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Fa­ti­ma and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­leges both on 35 points.

Guardian Me­dia Sports sent an email to the team man­ag­er Ravi Ram­goolam with three ques­tions about why the play­er did not play in Sep­tem­ber six rounds of match­es; was he a bona fide stu­dent when he played against San Juan North Sec­ondary and Fa­ti­ma Col­lege; and did the SS­FL cre­den­tial com­mit­tee reach out to St Bene­dict's Col­lege for con­fir­ma­tion about the play­er's leg­i­bil­i­ty af­ter ques­tions were raised.

Ram­goolam said that the mat­ter is be­ing dealt with by the Min­istry and he can­not com­ment.

The SS­FL Ar­ti­cle 16. 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.

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

The above rule is in keep­ing with the MOE rules for stu­dents en­rolled at its in­sti­tu­tions, there­fore, if the MOE con­firms that Gar­cia's sta­tus as a stu­dent is not in com­pli­ance with those rules then the nine match­es he played in Oc­to­ber could cost the school 25 points and 27 goals, and sus­pen­sion for any fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion in the rest of the SS­FL sea­son.

Guardian Me­dia Sports spoke to a for­mer sec­ondary school prin­ci­pal and asked whose au­thor­i­ty it is to grant a stu­dent time away from school and what is the process for re­in­state­ment.

The for­mer prin­ci­pal speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said, "First­ly, the prin­ci­pal is re­spon­si­ble for the op­er­a­tions of the school and the school su­per­vi­sor is the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter's rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Sec­ond­ly, a par­ent can make a re­quest to take their child out of school for var­i­ous rea­sons (main­ly med­ical).

The for­mer Prin­ci­pal ex­plained, "With prop­er process and pro­to­col if a stu­dent is away from school for a Term or less, the prin­ci­pal can use his ini­tia­tive to have the stu­dent re­sume his ed­u­ca­tion, but once it's be­cause a mat­ter where a stu­dent is away from school for an en­tire Form, the prop­er pro­ce­dure is to have the stu­dent ac­cessed to see if he/she need to re­peat the form and that can be done in con­sul­ta­tion with oth­er teach­ers at the School and the School Su­per­vi­sor. In this case, the School Su­per­vi­sor has a crit­i­cal role to play and sign off the rec­om­men­da­tion and in­form the Min­istry."

The SS­FL, the teams in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion, and more­so Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, who will ben­e­fit the most if the find­ings are ad­verse to St Bene­dict's Col­lege, are all ea­ger­ly await­ing the MOE find­ings on this mat­ter.

Mean­while, the 2024 In­ter­col Tour­na­ment start­ed Mon­day (No­vem­ber 4) with St Bene­dict's Col­lege on a bye, and will play the win­ner be­tween Siparia West Sec­ondary/Moru­ga Sec­ondary on Fri­day (No­vem­ber 8).