The three-man Ap­peals Com­mit­tee of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), com­pris­ing Rudolph Hope, Derek West, and Forbes Per­saud, had to ad­here to the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in ar­riv­ing at its de­ci­sion to up­hold the rul­ing of the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee two weeks ago, which or­dered that St Bene­dict’s Col­lege be pe­nalised 12 points for field­ing for the il­le­gal use of a play­er. 

On De­cem­ber 30, 2024, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege was pe­nalised for the il­le­gal use of strik­er Der­rel Gar­cia. 

Act­ing prin­ci­pal Gre­go­ry Quan Kep, who, from the sur­face, ap­peared not to have fol­lowed prop­er pro­ce­dure in the reg­is­tra­tion of the play­er for the 2024 sea­son, ap­pealed the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion on the ba­sis that the play­er was prop­er­ly reg­is­tered. 

The com­mit­tee’s rul­ing re­moved one of the school’s three ti­tles for 2024, leav­ing the school with the Co­ca-Co­la South Zone and Na­tion­al In­ter­col ti­tles. 

Quan Kep, with the sup­port of team man­ag­er Ravi Ram­goolam and at­tor­ney at law Christophe Brath­waite, ap­pealed to the trio of Per­saud, Hope, and West on Jan­u­ary 7, bran­dish­ing four points to jus­ti­fy the il­le­gal­i­ty of their pun­ish­ment. 

First­ly, Quan Kep ar­gued that the re­port sub­mit­ted by the SS­FL Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee (DC) con­tained in­cor­rect in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the first date Gar­cia at­tend­ed school and fur­ther con­tend­ed that the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee con­sid­ered in­cor­rect in­for­ma­tion to de­ter­mine the is­sue and con­se­quent­ly ar­rived at an ir­ra­tional de­ci­sion that no rea­son­able body could have con­clud­ed. Ac­cord­ing to Quan Kep, the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee, by its con­sid­er­a­tion of in­cor­rect in­for­ma­tion, erred in its analy­sis and de­ci­sion to im­pose a penal­ty on the school. 

The Ap­peals Com­mit­tee re­port al­so showed Quan Kep point­ing to Ar­ti­cle 16 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which or­ders a school to be sus­pend­ed for us­ing a play­er who was not prop­er­ly reg­is­tered, de­scrib­ing it as too vague and am­bigu­ous. 

He not­ed fur­ther that be­cause of the am­bi­gu­i­ty that ex­ists, no penal­ty should be im­posed. 

An­oth­er of Quan Kep’s points of con­tention in­clud­ed the le­gal prin­ci­ple of le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion and estop­pel, as well as ir­rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tion, in­equitable treat­ment, and bias. 

St Bene­dict’s played un­beat­en last sea­son and was ad­judged the win­ner of the pre­mier di­vi­sion, the South Zone In­ter­col, and the Na­tion­al In­ter­col ti­tles, all heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on Gar­cia, who was lat­er ad­judged the league’s top scor­er. 

Nick­named the La Ro­main Li­ons, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege al­so went to Guyana at the end of the sea­son and se­cured the sec­ond-place fin­ish at the KFC Good­will Foot­ball Tour­na­ment. 

Their per­for­mances, though, were over­shad­owed by an ad­min­is­tra­tive flaw that Gar­cia fell smack in the mid­dle of. 

Gar­cia’s par­ents re­quest­ed study leave from Au­gust 2023 to May 2024 for him to pro­ceed on a foot­ball in­tern­ship in Spain, and with­out the knowl­edge of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, ex­pect­ed to come from his school, Gar­cia missed the en­tire Form 3 aca­d­e­m­ic year from Sep­tem­ber 2023 to Ju­ly 2024. 

Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer (Ag) at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Aaron Ram­rat­tan or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Gar­cia’s ab­sence af­ter in­ter­cept­ing doc­u­ments of the arrange­ment be­tween Gar­cia’s par­ents and the Span­ish Foot­ball Acad­e­my, all ad­dressed to Quan Kep. 

On Mon­day, the three-man com­mit­tee, af­ter hear­ing the ap­peal by St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, agreed to up­hold the de­ci­sion of the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee with

a con­clu­sion that said: The Ap­peals Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly agrees that the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in­for­ma­tion from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, which has by law re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­duct of all mat­ters of ed­u­ca­tion in all pub­lic sec­ondary schools. This in­for­ma­tion was re­ceived via a let­ter from its Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer (Ag), giv­ing the date Der­rel Gar­cia re­sumed at­ten­dance at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege as Oc­to­ber 8, 2024, as ver­i­fied from the at­ten­dance reg­is­ter at the school. This we agreed pro­vides suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion from an in­de­pen­dent au­thor­i­ty on this mat­ter. 

The Ap­peals Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly agreed that Ar­ti­cle 16 is spe­cif­ic in its re­quire­ment for the reg­is­tra­tion of play­ers and that in the case of Der­rel Gar­cia these re­quire­ments were in­com­plete. The Ap­peals Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly agrees that the prin­ci­ple of le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion and estop­pel does not ap­ply, as there was at the time in ques­tion a le­git­i­mate rea­son to pur­sue an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and any aris­ing sanc­tion could be ap­plied, the sta­tus quo re­mains in place. The Ap­peals Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly agrees that there was no in­equal­i­ty of treat­ment and/or bias dur­ing the process of this in­quiry. 

The Ap­peals Com­mit­tee unan­i­mous­ly agrees that St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege failed to present suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion for the over­turn of the de­ci­sion of the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee in this mat­ter and there­fore agrees that all sanc­tions ap­plied as a con­se­quence stand.

The South­ern­ers now have the op­tion to take the mat­ter to ar­bi­tra­tion if they de­sire. 

Guardian Me­dia Sports at­tempts to reach act­ing Prin­ci­pal Quan Kep proved fu­tile. How­ev­er, school teacher and the foot­ball team’s man­ag­er Ravi Ram­goolam said all in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the mat­ter must on­ly come from the prin­ci­pal. 

Based on the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee’s Re­port on De­cem­ber 30, “St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege will for­feit all points for the un­der­men­tioned games that Gar­cia played with three (3) points and three (3) goals award­ed to the re­spec­tive school teams. 

On No­vem­ber 7, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, through Ram­rat­tan, wrote to the SS­FL sec­re­tary, Aza­ad Khan, ques­tion­ing the sta­tus of Gar­cia as a stu­dent at St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege, not­ing clear­ly that Gar­cia was as­signed to St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege through the SEA in 2021; he re­quest­ed study leave from Au­gust 2023 to May 2024 for 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 Gar­cia wrote re­quest­ing his re­in­state­ment; and the fact that Gar­cia re­sumed his at­ten­dance at the school on Oc­to­ber 8, 2024, was ver­i­fied from the at­ten­dance reg­is­ter at the school from that date. 

The min­istry again wrote to the SS­FL sec­re­tary on De­cem­ber 9, mak­ing it clear the ex­pect­ed pro­to­col at the min­istry is that any re­quest by a stu­dent for a leave of ab­sence or re­in­state­ment must be for­ward­ed to the school su­per­vi­sor for ap­proval; how­ev­er, they stat­ed that no in­for­ma­tion was giv­en to the school su­per­vi­sor for his con­sid­er­a­tion.

Be­fore re­turn­ing to class on 8 Oc­to­ber 2024, Gar­cia played against San Juan North Sec­ondary and St Bene­dict’s won 1-0; Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, they won 3-1; St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege and record­ed a 2-1 tri­umph and against Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) and won 2-1.