To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine says they are con­sid­er­ing their le­gal op­tions as it per­tains to the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball league de­ci­sion to omit the To­ba­go schools – Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary and Spey­side Sec­ondary from the up­com­ing 2026 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion sea­son.

Au­gus­tine’s warn­ing comes on the heels of Ever­ton Al­fred, Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TFA) who viewed the re­cent de­ci­sion by the ex­ec­u­tive of the SS­FL to omit the To­ba­go schools, name­ly, Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary and Spey­side Sec­ondary, from the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion as an­oth­er dark day in the his­to­ry of foot­ball and called on the league to with­draw its plans.

For the up­com­ing 2026 sea­son of the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Na­pari­ma Col­lege; St Bene­dict’s Col­lege; Fa­ti­ma Col­lege; St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege; Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka; Ari­ma North Sec­ondary; Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege; St Mary’s Col­lege; San Juan North Sec­ondary; Trin­i­ty Col­lege East; Mal­ick Sec­ondary; St. Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary; To­ba­go duo Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, which end­ed fifth in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion last year; and Spey­side Sec­ondary, which gained pro­mo­tion from the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion ‘Cham­pi­on of Cham­pi­ons’ Big-Five com­pe­ti­tion along with Hillview Col­lege and Mu­cu­rapo West Sec­ondary, were set to com­pete.

How­ev­er, in a de­ci­sion tak­en late last month af­ter it was pro­posed by North Zone SS­FL chair­man Joseph Tay­lor, the for­mer prin­ci­pal of Mu­cu­rapo West Sec­ondary, the SS­FL ex­ec­u­tive agreed to 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.

As a re­sult, the SS­FL ex­ec­u­tive fur­ther de­ter­mined that the two last-placed teams, Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary and Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary School would be de­mot­ed from the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion to their re­spec­tive To­ba­go Zone and Cen­tral Zone Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sions.

This meant the 2026 sea­son was due to fea­ture 17 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams, with the four bot­tom-placed teams at the end of the sea­son in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion be­ing de­mot­ed to their re­spec­tive Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion, while the top three teams in the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion ‘Big Five’ will gain pro­mo­tion to the 2027 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, which will com­prise 16 teams.

How­ev­er, in re­sponse to the de­ci­sion, TFA Pres­i­dent Al­fred said the de­ci­sion to re­move the To­ba­go Schools from the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the SS­FL high­light­ed the nar­row view of those in man­age­ment as well as those who vot­ed in favour of it.

Al­fred not­ed that the rea­sons giv­en for the de­ci­sion tak­en by the SS­FL was fi­nan­cial chal­lenges on the part of the Trinidad school teams, yet it was the To­ba­go teams who were made to suf­fer, by be­ing ex­clud­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Merere Gon­za­les, pres­i­dent of the SS­FL, the new for­mat was agreed up­on via a 9-6 vote with six ab­sten­tions at an ex­tra­or­di­nary gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing held at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um Tech­ni­cal Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, on Thurs­day, Ju­ly 22.

Gon­za­les not­ed the fi­nal de­ci­sions on the is­sues were on­ly made af­ter the SS­FL failed to get pos­i­tive replies from Caribbean Air­lines and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly with re­gard to the trav­el­ling is­sues that plagued the league for the past two sea­sons.

The SS­FL pres­i­dent said that they had made at­tempts, but no pos­i­tive replies were forth­com­ing from both Caribbean Air­lines and the THA.

In a state­ment on the THA Face­book page, Au­gus­tine first rub­bished ac­cu­sa­tions levied at the THA with re­gards to spon­sor­ship for the To­ba­go schools in the SS­FL.

The Face­book post stat­ed: The THA does, in fact, pro­vide fi­nan­cial and lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port for To­ba­go schools par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League, in­clud­ing sup­port for trav­el be­tween To­ba­go and Trinidad.

That is not a new arrange­ment. It was the case when I was a teacher and one of the lead­ers with the Spey­side Man­tas foot­ball pro­gramme, and it re­mains the case to­day while I serve as Chief Sec­re­tary.

In fact, be­cause of the num­ber of To­ba­go schools com­pet­ing at the Pre­mier League lev­el, our schools are re­quired to trav­el to Trinidad more fre­quent­ly and there­fore face con­sid­er­able high­er trav­el costs. Those To­ba­go schools are sup­port­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

The is­sue that has arisen is not that To­ba­go schools can­not af­ford to trav­el to Trinidad be­cause the THA has re­fused to as­sist them.

Rather, we have been ad­vised that Trinidad schools have raised con­cerns about the cost of trav­el­ling to To­ba­go. That dis­tinc­tion is im­por­tant, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­fore per­sons pub­licly ac­cuse the THA of aban­don­ing To­ba­go’s young foot­ballers.

Since this mat­ter sur­faced, the THA has not been silent.

The Sec­re­tary re­spon­si­ble for Le­gal Af­fairs has al­ready met with the af­fect­ed To­ba­go schools as we seek to pro­tect their in­ter­ests.

Fur­ther, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, as the le­gal en­ti­ty with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ed­u­ca­tion and sport on the is­land, is an in­ter­est­ed par­ty in this mat­ter, and is ac­tive­ly con­sid­er­ing the le­gal op­tions avail­able to us.

I al­so want to be clear about the ques­tion of fi­nanc­ing Trinidad schools.

The THA has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to To­ba­go and To­ba­go’s in­sti­tu­tions. I will there­fore not ac­cept that the THA as­sume fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Trinidad schools.

What I am pre­pared to do is pub­licly en­cour­age Trinidad’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er pri­vate sec­tor to en­sure that no school is pre­vent­ed from par­tic­i­pat­ing in na­tion­al school foot­ball sim­ply be­cause of the cost of trav­el­ling to To­ba­go.

To­ba­go does not en­joy that same depth of pri­vate-sec­tor re­sources, which is pre­cise­ly why the THA has his­tor­i­cal­ly stepped in to sup­port our schools.

This should nev­er be­come Trinidad ver­sus To­ba­go. It should be about fair­ness.

A na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion can­not mean­ing­ful­ly call it­self na­tion­al while treat­ing trav­el to one part of the coun­try as an op­tion­al ex­pense or an in­con­ve­nience. To­ba­go’s young foot­ballers de­serve the same op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete, de­vel­op and be seen as every oth­er young foot­baller in Trinidad and To­ba­go.