The Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Pre­mier Di­vi­sion will be con­test­ed via the reg­u­lar 17-team one-round league for­mat for the up­com­ing 2026 sea­son af­ter be­ing bailed out by the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs to the sum of $406,700.

This was con­firmed via me­dia re­leas­es from both the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, in which Phillip Watts is the line min­is­ter of sports and youth af­fairs, and the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Lau­rence Seep­er­sad on Fri­day.

Last month, a de­ci­sion was tak­en by the SS­FL gen­er­al coun­cil af­ter it was pro­posed by North Zone SS­FL chair­man Joseph Tay­lor that the SS­FL omit the To­ba­go schools (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary and Spey­side Sec­ondary) from the up­com­ing Pre­mier Di­vi­sion cam­paign, leav­ing the league with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion from To­ba­go for the first time in 12 sea­sons.

The de­ci­sion was due main­ly to fi­nan­cial con­straints, which in the past have af­fect­ed teams trav­el­ling to and from To­ba­go for match­es.

This meant the 2026 sea­son was due to fea­ture 15 teams in the Di­vi­sion com­pet­ing in 14 rounds of match­es, while the four To­ba­go schools, in­clu­sive of Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, Spey­side Sec­ondary, Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary, and Bish­op’s High School, con­test four rounds of league match­es amongst them­selves for 12 games each, at the end of which, the top two schools in each com­pe­ti­tion would con­test a ‘Big Four’ play­off.

How­ev­er, that de­ci­sion came in for heavy crit­i­cism from To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Ever­ton Al­fred as well as To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine, with the lat­ter go­ing as far as to say that they were con­sid­er­ing their le­gal op­tions as it per­tains to the de­ci­sion to omit the To­ba­go schools from the up­com­ing sea­son.

In re­sponse, Merere Gon­za­les, pres­i­dent of the SS­FL, said that they were still open to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary and Spey­side Sec­ondary be­ing part of the 17-team league, as the SS­FL was await­ing the in­volve­ment of a ma­jor en­ti­ty com­ing on board, which will play a ma­jor role in fi­nanc­ing the trav­el­ing ex­pens­es for teams be­tween both is­lands. Dur­ing his in­ter­view with the Guardian Gon­za­les did not re­vealed who the en­ti­ty was.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs (MSYA) in a re­lease stat­ed that it will fi­nance the trav­el ex­pens­es for the teams to trav­el to and from To­ba­go to par­tic­i­pate in their sched­uled match­es fol­low­ing a meet­ing with Min­is­ter Watts, the chair­man of the Sport Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT), Kester Lendor, SS­FL pres­i­dent Gon­za­les, sec­re­tary-trea­sur­er Lau­rence Seep­er­sad, and North Zone chair­man Joseph Tay­lor.

SporTT board mem­bers dis­ap­point­ed with min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment

How­ev­er, there are new con­cerns brew­ing among mem­bers of the SporTT Board, which is the en­ti­ty that is re­spon­si­ble for fund­ing the trav­el­ling ex­pens­es since they are yet to meet to dis­cuss and ap­prove the pro­pos­al.

Fol­low­ing the min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment in the pres­ence of the chair­man of the board, Lendore, Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that the pro­pos­al is not yet ap­proved by the board, which will meet in the last week of Au­gust to dis­cuss all fund­ing re­quest sub­mit­ted to it.

Ac­cord­ing to a source, sev­er­al mem­bers are dis­ap­point­ed with the pre­ma­ture an­nounce­ment by the min­is­ter, which means that when the board meets, it is placed in a po­si­tion to just rub­ber-stamp the pro­pos­al.

The source added that there are mem­bers who are con­cerned be­cause SporTT was not aware that a for­mal an­nounce­ment was be­ing made to­day (Fri­day), and it comes as a sur­prise, and they are yet to sit on the rec­om­men­da­tion that was sub­mit­ted to SporTT on Thurs­day (Au­gust 13, 2026).

The Source made ref­er­ence to what hap­pened with the Life Sport le­gal mat­ter that was hand­ed down last year by a High Court judge, and said this must not be re­peat­ed.

Judge scolds SporTT board af­ter Life­S­port breach

On Ju­ly 23, 2025, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim, de­liv­er­ing his rul­ing at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre, up­held SporTT’s law­suit against for­mer CEO John Mol­len­thiel, for­mer chair­man Se­bas­t­ian Padding­ton, and 12 oth­er for­mer di­rec­tors.

Jus­tice Rahim ruled that the board act­ed against SporTT’s best in­ter­est by ap­prov­ing a con­tract with eBeam In­ter­act Lim­it­ed in De­cem­ber 2012, fol­low­ing the Min­istry of Sport’s in­struc­tions.

He said the board should have ques­tioned eBeam’s abil­i­ty to de­liv­er, giv­en nu­mer­ous er­rors in its pro­pos­al, rather than un­crit­i­cal­ly fol­low­ing the min­istry’s di­rec­tive.

Jus­tice Rahim said, “The Board act­ed on the min­istry’s or­ders and didn’t con­sid­er if it was in the com­pa­ny’s best in­ter­est.”

“State boards are sim­ply not rub­ber stamps,” he added.

He not­ed that had board mem­bers ob­ject­ed or asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion, they would have helped en­sure the min­istry and, by ex­ten­sion, the gov­ern­ment met its oblig­a­tions.

Al­though SporTT sought sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion, the judge award­ed nom­i­nal dam­ages of $40,000 each against Mol­len­thiel and the for­mer di­rec­tors.

SS­FL pro­pos­al to Min­istry of Sports

The in­ter­ven­tion fol­lows re­ports of chal­lenges that could have pre­vent­ed teams from trav­el­ing to To­ba­go for com­pe­ti­tion.

Now, through the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts of the min­istry, the sport com­pa­ny, and the SS­FL, arrange­ments have now been made to fa­cil­i­tate the teams’ par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The SS­FL pre­sent­ed the MSYA with two pro­pos­als to help with the cov­er­ing of ex­pens­es for the teams:

Pro­pos­al A in­volved the 17 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion com­pet­ing in one round of match­es, with 15 Trinidad teams hav­ing to trav­el to To­ba­go at $12,000 each ($180,000); ref­er­ees for 136 games at $650.00 each ($88,400); 136 match com­mis­sion­ers at $300 each ($40,800); and ho­tel/guest house for one night for 15 match­es at $6,500 each ($97,500).

By agree­ing to cov­er the ex­pens­es sub­mit­ted in Pro­pos­al A, the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion will now fea­ture 17 teams in­clu­sive of de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Na­pari­ma Col­lege; St Bene­dict’s, Fa­ti­ma, St An­tho­ny’s, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, St Mary’s, and Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka; to­geth­er with Ari­ma North Sec­ondary, San Juan North Sec­ondary, Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, Mal­ick Sec­ondary, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, and the To­ba­go duo, Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary and Spey­side Sec­ondary Schools.

Sig­nal Hill end­ed fifth in the league last year, while Spey­side Sec­ondary gained pro­mo­tion from the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion ‘Big-Five’ com­pe­ti­tion along with Hillview Col­lege and Mu­cu­rapo West Sec­ondary Schools.

The SS­FL is set to kick off on Sep­tem­ber 11, with a dou­ble-head­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, with a girls’ sea­son open­er from 3 pm fol­lowed by a boys’ clash from 5 pm.

In his re­lease to the me­dia, Min­is­ter Watts said the min­istry re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing stu­dent-ath­letes and safe­guard­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple to com­pete, de­vel­op their tal­ent, and rep­re­sent their schools with pride.

“Our young ath­letes must be giv­en every op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate, com­pete, and ful­fil their po­ten­tial. School sports play a crit­i­cal role in build­ing dis­ci­pline, team­work, lead­er­ship, and na­tion­al pride, and we were there­fore de­ter­mined to work with the SS­FL and the Sport Com­pa­ny to find a so­lu­tion. We are pleased that the teams will now be able to trav­el to To­ba­go and take part in their sched­uled match­es.”

Min­is­ter Watts added that the min­istry will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with sport­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions and stake­hold­ers to strength­en the de­vel­op­ment of youth sports through­out T&T.

SS­FL pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Min­is­ter Watts and chair­man Lendor for re­spond­ing prompt­ly to the con­cerns and help­ing to en­sure that the teams can par­tic­i­pate in the games.

“We are grate­ful for their in­ter­ven­tion and com­mit­ment to the League. Their sup­port means that our stu­dent-ath­letes will be able to take the field and con­tin­ue their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the com­pe­ti­tion,” Gon­za­les said.

Chair­man Lendor reaf­firmed the Sport Com­pa­ny’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing ini­tia­tives that pro­mote youth de­vel­op­ment, sport­ing ex­cel­lence, and eq­ui­table ac­cess to com­pe­ti­tion for stu­dent-ath­letes across T&T.

The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs re­mains com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing sport as a ve­hi­cle for youth de­vel­op­ment, na­tion­al uni­ty, and the dis­cov­ery of fu­ture sport­ing tal­ent.