South champs Moruga face relegation without losing a match, in fresh SSFL registration row

The 2023 Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) Boys Big Five competition, which will determine the three promoted schools for the 2024 Premier Division competition, looks set to be held three months late in January 2024.

And that is merely the tip of the iceberg, as a catalogue of alleged administrative errors see two zonal champions, Moruga Secondary and Miracle Ministries Pentecostal High School, on the verge of being stripped of their titles—and, just as crucially, denied the chance to play for promotion to the SSFL top flight.

On Friday 27 October, the Big Five was due to kick off across two venues in Trinidad, with Miracle Ministries hosting Blanchisseuse Secondary while Moruga were carded to play away to St Augustine Secondary. Tobago champs, Signal Hill Secondary, were on a bye.

However, the SSFL indicated to the public, at just before noon, that the games were “postponed to a date and time to be determined”.

Moruga head coach Kempton Duval and his squad were already en route to St Augustine, in a maxi taxi, when they got word that the game was postponed, due to a protest against them and “another team”.

It might be as close as Moruga will ever get to playing in the upcoming Big Five.

“The Big Five competition should have been completed already because usually the Intercol brings down the curtain on the schools football season,” SSFL president Merere Gonzales told Wired868. “But because of issues with registration and trying to avoid doing a TTFA where we have to come back and apologise for getting it wrong, we wanted to get the right documentation for the disciplinary committee to rule on before we started the competition, which took some time.”

On 3 August 2023, Guaya United registered a player, Derron John, after the deadline in the TTPFL Tier 2 and the TTFA accepted the transfer—only for Harlem Strikers FC to protest the legitimacy of the move. At which point, the TTFA penalised Guaya for breaking the rules but apologised for its own role in the farce.

As a result of the ruling, Guaya were stripped of the chance to contest the Tier 2 Playoff trophy.

Whether the SSFL did enough to avoid parallels with the TTFA is debatable. In the case of the schools competition, the executive was informed of complaints against three of their five zonal winners: Moruga, Miracle Ministries and Blanchisseuse.

The protest against Blanchisseuse lacked credibility and was quickly dismissed. But the matters involving the other schools were deemed serious and the SSFL executive stalled for time,

On 30 October, a second release indicated that the entire Big Five competition was postponed until after the five zonal Championship Division winners were eliminated from the Intercol.

It bought the SSFL executive another three weeks, with Miracle Ministries being the last Big Five team to go down in the Intercol when they lost 1-0 to Chaguanas North Secondary on Monday 20 November. And even then, it was not nearly enough time.

So, what happened?

Over the years, the SSFL had its share of controversies from: players short of required passes to compete (Carapichaima East Secondary’s Nicholai Rivers and East Mucurapo Secondary’s Abdus Ramcharan), registered with fraudulent exam certificates (Fyzabad Secondary’s Maurice Dick and Dez Jones—whose paperwork were submitted by manager Nigel Lakhan and signed off by principal Troy Jebodhsingh), not cleared from competing in external competitions (Shiva Boys Hindu College’s Kierron Mason and Matthew Beal) and a student-athlete in his ninth year of secondary school (Presentation San Fernando’s Kori Cupid, who spent two years at Trinity College Moka).

And there was a Manzanilla Secondary footballer (Keshawn Diaz) who was never actually a student at that school.

The cases of Moruga and Miracle Ministries appear to lack any malicious intent. But Article 16.7 puts the blame for any registration issues squarely in the camp of the schools in question:

“Where incorrect information is found the offending school shall be liable, all penalties and sanctions shall [go] to the games the player or players participated in.”

There are differing accounts of how the Moruga matter got started. A SSFL source said that a protest was lodged against the school’s use of player Veron Gomez in a match against Point Fortin East Secondary on Friday 22 September.

However, a Moruga representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, countered that it was closer to a fishing exercise by South Zone runners-up, Ste Madeleine Secondary.

Incidentally, Moruga lost their opening game of the 2023 season to Ste Madeleine but then had the match overturned in the protest room after the latter school used a non-student.

As such, Moruga ended their South Championship campaign with a perfect record of 10 wins with 46 goals scored and seven conceded. Ste Madeleine finished second with 24 points and 45 goals scored with 14 against.

Moruga’s initial query against Ste Madeleine was crucial. If you took away three points and goals from Moruga and gave it to Ste Madeleine along with their initial scoreline, the South Zone would have a different champion by goal difference—with both schools on 27 points.

In contrast, Moruga’s improper use of Gomez, who was not registered in time to face Point Fortin East, did not alter the standings, despite the point deduction. Moruga had 27 points but Ste Madeleine still had 24.

However, Wired868 understands that the Ste Madeleine complaint opened another issue. When Moruga registered their initial squad of 26 players, there was allegedly no sign of the principal’s signature or the school stamp—as mandated by the league.

Article 16 of the SSFL Constitution states: “[…] In addition to the player’s full name, the registration must be signed by the principal and accompanied by the requisite fee…”

The penalty for the invalid registration of a player is “loss of game by the offending team”.

Although Gomez was registered late, at least it was done in accordance with the SSFL’s rules.

However, Moruga, based on the findings of the SSFL Disciplinary Committee, went the entire 2023 season with unregistered players who even received player IDs. And they literally went from being heroes to, no offense intended, zero.

Stripped of every single point, a Moruga team that won all 10 league matches—if one includes their protest win over Ste Madeleine—was set to be relegated to the Senior Division. And Ste Madeleine will represent the South Zone in the Big Five instead.

Moruga have appealed the decision.

In the Central Zone, there was also a protest by the runners-up, in this case, Carapichaima East, against champions, Miracle Ministries. Once more, the alleged issue occurred at the start of the season but was not picked up by the governing body.

Miracle Ministries head coach Kern Cupid showed Wired868 an image of their submitted registration documents, in which they asked the league for confirmation that everything was in order.

There was also a screenshot of a conversation between Cupid and SSFL Credentials Committee member Laurence Seepersad on 14 September in which the coach asked for an online meeting with the Central Zone official.

(Seepersad recused himself from the disciplinary matter involving Miracle Ministries.)

Cupid suggested it was proof that he made every effort to ensure their registration was done properly. Wired868 could not get confirmation of his claim from the SSFL.

However, the disciplinary committee ruled that the document submitted for the registration of 11 Miracle Ministries players was “not an official document”. In the Central school’s case, it cost them points for their first four games of the season.

The players were: Mathias Squires, Rolando Solomon, Kyle Holder, Jadel Henry, Romario De Silva, Keon Codrington, Israel Mitchell, Shevon Lallo, and Kieron Guy.

Miracle Ministries finished the season two points clear of Carapichaima East and then doubled up by knocking out “Caps” in the Central Zone Intercol semifinals.

But, via the protest room, Carapichaima had the last laugh. The adjusted standings show Caps in first place with 28 points while Miracle Ministries are third with 15 points.

Miracle Ministries also lodged a protest.

“I am extremely disappointed that school officials (managers, coaches, administrators) have deceitful intentions to prevent our school from advancing,” Cupid told Wired868. “[It is] a blatant abuse of an online system, weaponised against us. Apparently, upsetting the ‘status quo’ has consequences!”

Gonzales said both cases were regrettable. But the SSFL will stand by the ruling of the relevant committee and continue with whichever teams are ruled to be the bonafide zonal winners.

“What has to be done, has to be done,” said Gonzales. “The SSFL cannot be fearful of doing what has to be done. We just want to allow due process to take place and unfold.”

Incidentally, the SSFL Girls Big Five competition also remains incomplete after “continuous postponements” of the final, which features Scarborough Secondary and Five Rivers Secondary.

Gonzales noted that Five Rivers successfully rescheduled the game on several occasions. But the SSFL is keen to have a winner before Christmas and should confirm a new date before the end of the week.

The SSFL also hopes to have their Boys Big Five fixtures confirmed within the next week or two. But does the league take any responsibility for the ongoing issues with registration?

“Registration remains a critically important exercise in the make-up of the SSFL, especially leading into competition,” said Gonzales. “It is something the league has to monitor and assess so issues of this nature do not continue from one season to the next. We have to lessen, if not eradicate, this issue.”

He referred to a “brilliant point” by Fatima College manager Stephen “Bison” Williams who suggested, at a recent general meeting, that the registration process start earlier so teams can see about their players who are not waiting on exam results.

“The players who are awaiting results are a small number,” said Gonzales, “so it is less people to peruse.”

But what will the SSFL executive do?

“Whether one will go the way of taking information earlier so we have less to deal with in terms of the registration of schools,” he said, “or have an individual whose job spec is registration to focus only on that.

“Or maybe we can include the addition of working staff to deal with registration of 100+ plus schools, especially those competing at Premier and Championship level which seems to be where the majority of the problems lie.

“As far as any specific decision on addressing this matter, that has to go to the general council. But what I can say is that it is an area of paramount importance and one that is a front burner issue; and one that the league plans to deal with in a most fastidious and expeditious way.”

Almost certainly, that would be too late for Moruga Secondary and Miracle Ministries Pentecostal High School.