Holy Cross protests 3 Arima transfers

Last week Holy Cross Col­lege lodged the League's first ap­peal, be­liev­ing 'The Di­al Dy­namos' il­le­gal­ly took the trio in­to form four on a re­peat trans­fer with just one pass when the SS­FL's rules state clear­ly that stu­dents en­ter­ing school on a form five re­peat, must have a min­i­mum of two sub­jects.

The schools are com­pet­ing in the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion of the SS­FL, and yes­ter­day Holy Cross man­ag­er Nigel Fran­cois, said that dur­ing his school's in­ves­ti­ga­tion, it found that some­thing was ques­tion­able with the use of Joseph (Suc­cess Laven­tille) and the Da Cos­ta sib­lings from (Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary) which re­quired an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"We found that the doc­u­ments of these stu­dents need­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion, so we asked the cre­den­tials com­mit­tee to do so. Af­ter all, it is not on­ly about foot­ball, but al­so about stu­dents' aca­d­e­mics, "Fran­cois told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

Ari­ma prin­ci­pal Vish­nu Debe could not be reached yes­ter­day, but an of­fi­cial from the school who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said, the school took a po­si­tion to as­sist the stu­dents by plac­ing them in­to the fourth Form where they will have more time to ded­i­cate to school. He point­ed to the SS­FL rules which al­low for stu­dents on a trans­fer re­peat to Form five, to have a min­i­mum of two pass­es to be leg­i­ble to play foot­ball for the school.

"The rules nev­er spoke of trans­fer re­peat stu­dents en­ter­ing form four, which is what we did, and there­fore we did not break any law. I am will­ing to chal­lenge this to the very end," the of­fi­cial said.

Ger­ald El­liot, a mem­ber of the Cre­den­tials Com­mit­tee, which al­so in­cludes Azaard Khan, the League's Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, said the mat­ter was brought be­fore them and they are con­duct­ing an in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to it.

El­liot told Guardian Me­dia the rules are very clear with re­spect to trans­fer re­peat of stu­dents in­to form five. He dis­missed claims the law was not bro­ken as the stu­dents were placed in­to form four, de­scrib­ing it as il­le­gal, as the SS­FL rules are clear for stu­dents on a trans­fer re­peat.

The com­mit­tee is ex­pect­ed to call in of­fi­cials of Ari­ma North to an­swer the charges some­time this week.

If the Ari­ma boys are found guilty the school will face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing all its points de­duct­ed, El­liot ex­plained. "That is a pos­si­bil­i­ty but the com­mit­tee will have to de­cide on how it will treat with this," El­liot not­ed.

Ari­ma North leads the stand­ings with 16 points from five wins and a tie 3-3 against Holy Cross Sep­tem­ber 18.