The Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) has long been a cor­ner­stone of Trin­bag­on­ian foot­ball, nur­tur­ing young tal­ent and cap­ti­vat­ing the na­tion. The SS­FL un­doubt­ed­ly re­mains the most pop­u­lar foot­ball league in the coun­try. As a proud alum­nus of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, I’ve al­ways held a deep af­fec­tion for the SS­FL, as it is a league that has pro­duced count­less tal­ent­ed play­ers and pro­vid­ed end­less hours of ex­cite­ment for pas­sion­ate stu­dents and alum­ni across the na­tion. 

As a play­er, coach, and now com­men­ta­tor, I’ve wit­nessed nu­mer­ous thrilling match­es, cel­e­brat­ed vic­to­ries, en­dured heart­break­ing de­feats, and ex­pe­ri­enced the highs and lows and the tri­umphs and tragedies that make the SS­FL so cap­ti­vat­ing. Nat­u­ral­ly, I get riled up when I see the league em­broiled in a scan­dal or con­tro­ver­sy, es­pe­cial­ly if I be­lieve it could have been avoid­ed.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, the SS­FL has faced the oc­ca­sion­al ques­tion mark over play­er el­i­gi­bil­i­ty, where the le­git­i­ma­cy of a bona fide stu­dent comes in­to ques­tion.

How­ev­er, I have al­ways known the phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion teacher, or ‘Games Mas­ter’ in the not-so-old days, to­geth­er with the prin­ci­pal, to deal with these mat­ters ef­fi­cient­ly and re­solve them with­in a day or two. The school must en­sure the stu­dent is reg­is­tered with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE), and there­fore he/she can reg­is­ter with the SS­FL to rep­re­sent the school for the sea­son.

It seems straight­for­ward with­out too many com­pli­ca­tions, but if you have 15 schools with 25 stu­dents reg­is­tered to play foot­ball for each school, you have 375 stu­dents that the MOE must go through to en­sure they are reg­is­tered. Is that the job of the MOE or the SS­FL once all their reg­is­tra­tions come in to en­sure all the stu­dents are bona fide stu­dents of the school and can there­fore rep­re­sent the school? 

This brings me to the mat­ter of the day, Der­rel ‘Zoom Zoom’ Gar­cia’s el­i­gi­bil­i­ty is­sue that is grab­bing all the head­lines, rather than prais­ing this tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­ual for scor­ing 17 goals and his school for win­ning the cham­pi­onship. The crux of the is­sue is that Gar­cia was reg­is­tered at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege in Sep­tem­ber 2021 fol­low­ing his S.E.A. ex­ams.

He missed the en­tire 2023-2024 aca­d­e­m­ic year from Sep­tem­ber 2023 to Ju­ly 2024 while he pur­sued a foot­ball schol­ar­ship in Spain.

Gar­cia’s par­ents re­quest­ed and re­ceived ap­proved study leave for him dur­ing this time. On 30th Au­gust 2024, the St Bene­dict’s Col­lege prin­ci­pal sub­mit­ted Gar­cia’s reg­is­tra­tion form for the SS­FL, in­di­cat­ing that Der­rel was a bona fide full-time stu­dent of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege.

There is a rule that ex­ists that states stu­dents must be for­mal­ly re­in­stat­ed af­ter a term or more away from school. On 25th Sep­tem­ber 2024, the par­ents of Gar­cia wrote to the School re­quest­ing his re­in­state­ment, and Gar­cia re­sumed at­ten­dance at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege on 8th Oc­to­ber 2024, as ver­i­fied from the at­ten­dance reg­is­ter at the school. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od from 25th Sep­tem­ber to 8th Oc­to­ber, Gar­cia played in three SS­FL match­es be­fore he re­sumed at­ten­dance at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege. 

The SS­FL Con­sti­tu­tion, un­der the pro­ce­dure for reg­is­tra­tion, states that stu­dents must be du­ly reg­is­tered ac­cord­ing to the ex­ist­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions of the MOE and on the of­fi­cial at­ten­dance reg­is­ter of the school pre­sent­ing the team. These stu­dents must at­tend class­es at that school dur­ing nor­mal school hours. The MOE has pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion that Gar­cia does not meet all, if any, of these cri­te­ria.

The ques­tion is, did Gar­cia’s par­ents’ let­ter to the school on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2024, re­quest­ing re­in­state­ment suf­fice to make Gar­cia a bona fide stu­dent, or is it that Gar­cia on­ly be­came a bona fide stu­dent when he first at­tend­ed school on Oc­to­ber 8, 2024? The po­ten­tial penal­ty of in­fringe­ment for the vi­o­la­tion of that rule in the Con­sti­tu­tion is a sus­pen­sion of the school from fur­ther com­pe­ti­tion in the di­vi­sion for the re­main­der of the sea­son, but cor­rect me if I am wrong, isn’t the sea­son over? 

The SS­FL has re­ferred Gar­cia’s mat­ter to its dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee for a rul­ing to­day (Thurs­day, No­vem­ber 14, 2024) where po­ten­tial­ly the 2024 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­ons could be de­cid­ed. The tim­ing of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, un­usu­al­ly ini­ti­at­ed with­out a for­mal protest af­ter the con­clu­sion of the sea­son, has fur­ther added fu­el to the fire. The charges against Gar­cia may very well be true and au­then­ti­cat­ed, but the SS­FL ex­ec­u­tive has bizarrely wait­ed un­til the end of the sea­son to now re­fer the mat­ter to its dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee for a rul­ing that would de­cide the fate of the 2024 Pre­mier­ship. The po­ten­tial penal­ties, in­clud­ing point de­duc­tions, the strip­ping of the ti­tle, or even the school’s right to re­main in the com­pe­ti­tion, have far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege. Such a se­vere pun­ish­ment rais­es ques­tions about the pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of the of­fence and the im­pact on the young ath­letes in­volved. 

I am hear­ing from sources that the most like­ly out­come is that St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege will be de­duct­ed 9 points, which would place them in third po­si­tion be­hind Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do, which would then hand Fa­ti­ma Col­lege the ti­tle on goal dif­fer­ence. While I would love noth­ing more than to see Fa­ti­ma Col­lege lift the tro­phy, I can­not con­done a vic­to­ry that comes un­der such du­bi­ous cir­cum­stances. That is not how I would want to win the league. St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege was the best-play­ing team and de­feat­ed all of their clos­est ri­vals. ‘Zoom Zoom’ was ab­solute mag­ic. What a play­er he is! If he works hard, he has a bright fu­ture. In the end, I am hope­ful good sense can pre­vail, and even if points have to be de­duct­ed, why not ap­ply that penal­ty at the start of next sea­son in 2025? We see that hap­pen in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League, where a team starts a new sea­son with mi­nus points for a breach of rules.

It’s im­por­tant to note that this sit­u­a­tion is not the fault of Gar­cia him­self, or the tal­ent­ed young St. Bene­dict’s play­ers who have worked tire­less­ly through­out the sea­son, or the ded­i­cat­ed stu­dents and alum­ni who have sup­port­ed their team through­out. They should not be pun­ished for the ac­tions or in­ac­tions of a few in­di­vid­u­als. How­ev­er, the rules are in place for a rea­son, and they must be ad­hered to. I am not sure why all of this with young Gar­cia hap­pened at the end of the league. It is ob­vi­ous that some­body out there does not want the best-play­ing foot­ball school to win the league, and some­thing like this should nev­er hap­pen again as both the SS­FL and MOE must get their house in or­der. They must work to­geth­er to es­tab­lish a more ro­bust and trans­par­ent el­i­gi­bil­i­ty ver­i­fi­ca­tion process. This could in­volve stricter doc­u­men­ta­tion re­quire­ments, reg­u­lar au­dits, and even third-par­ty ver­i­fi­ca­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the league should con­sid­er im­ple­ment­ing a time­ly dis­pute res­o­lu­tion mech­a­nism to ad­dress el­i­gi­bil­i­ty con­cerns prompt­ly. 

In clos­ing, let me wel­come Dwight Yorke, the new T&T se­nior na­tion­al head coach, and wish him all suc­cess in his new role. Yorke will be well sup­port­ed by the Trinidad & To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) as he has a huge task ahead of him. As fans, let’s ral­ly be­hind Yorke and his team as they em­bark on their jour­ney to qual­i­fy for the 2026 World Cup. Un­der his guid­ance and with the coun­try’s sup­port, the So­ca War­riors can once again make their mark on the glob­al stage. To­day, the TTFA of­fi­cial­ly wel­comes Yorke in his new role at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um. Good luck, Dwight!