A war of words has erupted between principal of Manchester High Jasper Gabriel and the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) following Wednesday’s decision by an ISSA disciplinary committee to dock six points from the Mandeville based institution over their use of an ineligible player in the ISSA/LIME daCosta Cup competition.

Both men were guests on a radio sports call in programme at different times yesterday, a day after ISSA found that Manchester High had used the player in their first two games — wins over DeCarteret College and Mile Gully High in Zone F of the competition.

The decision by ISSA saw a revision of the points in Zone F with points being awarded to DeCarteret College and Mile Gully.

If the decision stands, Mile Gully, who went into yesterday’s game with 19 points, will win the zone, while Manchester High on 10 points, would need to win both remaining games to get into the Inter-zone round where they would be grouped with defending champions St Elizabeth Technical.

Gabriel did not rule out an appeal, but said he “has no confidence” going back to ISSA in the hopes of overturning the decision.

The player, who Gabriel identified on the programme, played for BB Coke last year, left the school in December and started attending Manchester High in February. He sat external exams and attained the minimum ISSA standard of four passes and was accepted in 12th grade at the Mandeville school.

George Forbesm the ISSA competitions secretary, said the transfer rules were breached in that the player had not gone directly to 12th grade but had repeated 11th grade at Manchester High and as he had played in the daCosta cup last season had to sit out this season as per the rules.

Forbes said the rules said specifically that students transferring from one member school to the next and who were not going directly into 12th Grade had to miss the next season in their sport.

Forbes also pointed out that someone from Manchester High had called the ISSA offices prior to the start of the season asking whether the player would be eligible but was told no.

He also said the player had been registered this season with a different date of birth than the one he has been registered with at BB Coke with. The ISSA registration process used both names and date of birth to identify students and had the boys being registered with the same date of birth, the system would have picked it up and rejected the second registration.

Gabriel said, however, that Manchester High had done nothing wrong and accused ISSA, an association his school is a member of, of “trampling on the rights of the student and “tarnishing the good name of the school”.

The Manchester High principal said their actions were more of trying to help the young man achieve his best.

Gabriel said the player was originally in Grade 11 at BB Coke, but was moved back to 10th Grade and then left the school after the first term last year and asked to be enrolled at Manchester High.

Admitting the player read at a lesser grade than his age group, Gabriel said his being accepted in 12th grade at Manchester High was a big step up for him and that ISSA’s ruling was not in keeping with the spirit of the rule that allowed for the continued academic development of students.