As re­port­ed by the Guardian news­pa­per on No­vem­ber 5, 2024, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege is at risk of be­ing stripped of sev­er­al points and goals over the reg­is­tra­tion sta­tus of star strik­er Der­rel Gar­cia dur­ing the 2024 sea­son of the Sec­ondary School Foot­ball League (SS­FL) dur­ing the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion pro­gramme.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) wrote the SS­FL fol­low­ing its re­quest for in­for­ma­tion about Gar­cia’s bona fide sta­tus with St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, just be­fore St Bene­dict’s Col­lege won the ti­tle with 41 points af­ter an un­beat­en run that saw drew two match­es from the 15 the school con­test­ed, six more than the 2023 cham­pi­on Fa­ti­ma and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­leges.

Guardian Me­dia Sports un­der­stands that the MOE con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion last month that in­volved both the act­ing prin­ci­pal Gre­go­ry Quan Kep and the act­ing vice prin­ci­pal Hay­ma­tee Jaleel, and the find­ings were shared with the SS­FL.

Ac­cord­ing to the MOE in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the fol­low­ing were re­vealed:

• 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.

Based on the above, the SS­FL via a press re­lease said that its Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee will meet on Thurs­day to de­cide on Gar­cia’s reg­is­tra­tion sta­tus.

Based on the find­ings of the MOE, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege faces be­ing de­duct­ed nine points and six goals for the match­es on Oc­to­ber 2 in which St Bene­dict’s de­feat­ed San Juan Sec­ondary 1-0, on Oc­to­ber 5, when St Bene­dict’s whipped Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, 3-1 and on Oc­to­ber 7 a resched­uled fix­ture which St Bene­dict’s al­so won against St An­tho­ny’s, 2-1. He did not score against San Juan but scored twice against Fa­ti­ma at Ma­haica Oval in Point Fortin and once against St An­tho­ny’s in West­moor­ings.

For a stu­dent-ath­lete to par­tic­i­pate in the SS­FL that stu­dent and the school must com­ply with Ar­ti­cle 16 of the school rules as out­lined by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

SS­FL Ar­ti­cle 16 Cri­te­ria for Reg­is­tra­tion states: 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.

Last month, the SS­FL wrote to the MOE about 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.

While St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary was pe­nalised be­cause of a protest by Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, no school protest­ed St Bene­dict’s Col­lege use of Gar­cia, how­ev­er, the pub­lic con­cerns raised was enough for the SS­FL gen­er­al sec­re­tary Aza­ad Mo­hammed-Khan, who is al­so chair­man of the Cre­den­tial Com­mit­tee to write the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to con­firm if Gar­cia was a bona fide stu­dent of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege.

Gar­cia, who is now in Form Four, was not in school for all of Form Three and did not fea­ture in any of St Bene­dict’s first five match­es played on Sep­tem­ber 11, 14, 18, 21, and 28 2024. How­ev­er, the match against St An­tho­ny’s on Sep­tem­ber 25 was resched­uled to Oc­to­ber 7.

Gar­cia, who 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, is al­so fac­ing hav­ing his goal-tal­ly re­duced to 14.

The SS­FL dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee will have no choice but to strip St Bene­dict’s of nine points and nine goals which means Fa­ti­ma Col­lege will move from 35 points to 38 and will be crowned the 2024 cham­pi­ons. San Juan will al­so im­prove its po­si­tion on the stand­ings.

Cur­rent 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