WESTERN BUREAU:
THE Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) will meet this morning to seek a quick resolution to a protest by Cornwall College following their defeat by Clarendon College in last Wednesday's Ben Francis KO semi-finals.
Clarendon College won the game 4-1 but Cornwall filed a protest with ISSA alleging that Clarendon had used national Under 20 midfielder Sean Fraser who should have been ineligible after picking up three yellow cards.
Frome Technical won the other semi-final 2-0 over Munro to qualify for their first major schoolboy football final.
Representatives from Clarendon College and ISSA, including general secretary Brian Breese, ISSA chairman Clement Ratcliff and daCosta Cup chairman Elroy Ricketts are all expected to attend the meeting that will start at 10:00 at the ISSA head office.
Today's meeting became necessary after Clarendon College reversed an earlier decision to withdraw from the competition following the protest. It is understood that Clarendon had agreed to voluntarily pull out but reversed that decision thereby challenging ISSA to substantiate their claims.
Corey Phillips who was in charge of the Clarendon team in the absence of head coach Patrick 'Jackie'Walters, told the Gleaner last week that he knew that the player had picked up three yellow cards but thought that the Ben Francis KO and daCosta Cup were different competitions and thus cards collected in one, did not affect the other.
Principal of Clarendon College, Stanhope Porteous, also told the Gleaner on Friday that he thought that the coach had made "an innocent mistake" in using Fraser in the game and also that Phillips had been incorrectly advised by referees.
Porteous said Phillips had sought the advice of the officials prior to the start of the game and they told him that the Ben Francis and daCosta Cup were different competitions.
Meanwhile, both Breese and Ricketts have agreed that time is of the essence in dealing with the matter as the season is quickly coming to an end.
The ISSA general secretary told the Gleaner that one way or the other the game will be played after it was indefinitely postponed from last Saturday.
