The Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) has of­fered a sin­cere apol­o­gy to foot­ball stake­hold­ers and sup­port­ers for its part in pe­nal­is­ing Mir­a­cle Min­istries Pen­te­costal and Moru­ga Sec­ondary Schools un­jus­ti­fi­ably, last year.

Mir­a­cle Min­istries, the win­ners of the Cen­tral Zone of the Boys Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion, up to this week, faced los­ing three points, hav­ing its ti­tle stripped and not get­ting the op­por­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge for Pre­mier Di­vi­sion pro­mo­tion af­ter their reg­is­tra­tion of play­ers on­line came up un­reg­is­tered, ac­cord­ing to the SS­FL.

In Moru­ga's case, their reg­is­tra­tion was con­sid­ered il­le­gal due to an ap­par­ent ab­sence of the prin­ci­pal's sig­na­ture and school stamp, al­though the SS­FL could not prove it. In both cas­es, how­ev­er, the schools, de­spite claims of their il­le­gal reg­is­tra­tions, both re­ceived play­ers' ID cards which was a cri­te­ri­on to play.

Strange­ly, the Cre­den­tials and Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tees ruled that the reg­is­tra­tions were in­valid. And lat­er the Ap­peals Com­mit­tee up­held the rul­ing.

It was the in­volve­ment of the Ar­bi­tra­tion Com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing for­mer SS­FL pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Creed, Theophilus Trimm, and Justin Lat­apy-George, that de­liv­ered jus­tice for the schools. The ar­biters re­vealed that the process­es ac­cord­ing to the SS­FL con­sti­tu­tion were not fol­lowed in pe­nal­is­ing the schools.

The ar­bi­tra­tion com­mit­tee al­so point­ed to di­rect sit­u­a­tions of con­flict of in­ter­est which per­vert­ed the course of jus­tice.

On Tues­day, the SS­FL through its gen­er­al sec­re­tary Azard Khan, is­sued a let­ter of apol­o­gy, which said, "Fol­low­ing the de­ci­sion by the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Ar­bi­tra­tion Com­mit­tee to re­in­state Mir­a­cle Min­istries Pen­te­costal High School (MMPHS) and Moru­ga Sec­ondary as Cen­tral Zone and South Zone Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion win­ners re­spec­tive­ly, the SS­FL here­by un­re­served­ly apol­o­gis­es to all foot­ball stake­hold­ers and sup­port­ers for the un­for­tu­nate events that oc­curred.

"The de­ci­sion by our Ar­bi­tra­tion Com­mit­tee and the re­ac­tions of dis­tress from the par­ties and sup­port­ers in re­cent days has giv­en us time for fur­ther re­flec­tion and deep thought. It was nev­er our in­ten­tion to cause such dis­tress. The SS­FL un­der­stands ful­ly that the sys­tem needs to be fixed. We must work to­geth­er to find so­lu­tions which pro­tect the fu­ture of the League.

"It is clear that the events that led to ar­bi­tra­tion were a sig­nif­i­cant mis­step and due dili­gence should have been of a much high­er stan­dard. We didn’t ini­tial­ly make the right de­ci­sion here, which we ful­ly ac­cept. Our aim is al­ways to make the right de­ci­sions for this great League, to pro­tect it for the fu­ture, and to take us for­ward. The SS­FL mean­time has tak­en pro­gres­sive steps to ad­dress the mat­ter so that such events do not hap­pen again. Once again, the SS­FL is tru­ly sor­ry for any in­con­ve­nience or of­fense this mis­step may have caused."

The ar­bi­tra­tion com­mit­tee al­so made rec­om­men­da­tions that the SS­FL is ex­pect­ed to fol­low be­fore the start of the Big Five which is now set for Feb­ru­ary 1. In the open­ing match, Mir­a­cle Min­istries will take on Blan­chisseuse Sec­ondary at Ed­in­burgh 500 Recre­ation Ground, Ch­agua­nas while Moru­ga will have a date with St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary in St Au­gus­tine.

The top three teams from the Big Five will be pro­mot­ed to the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the SS­FL lat­er this year.

The Girls' Big Five win­ner will al­so be de­cid­ed on Feb­ru­ary 1 with Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary com­ing up against Five Rivers Sec­ondary at Black Rock.