Adrian Frater, News Editor

WESTERN BUREAU:

WITH THE referees under clear instructions not to facilitate players without identification cards, which is a perquisite for participation in the 2008 ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup, the situation could become contentious as some schools are blaming ISSA for not furnishing them with IDs on time.

"We submitted all the relevant documentation on time, but we have only gotten back some of the IDs and, as a result, some of our players are not being allowed to play," said a western Jamaica principal, who asked not be identified. "We think this is very unfair to us as we are not at fault."

On Wednesday afternoon, Manning's School turned up for their Zone C fixture against their Petersfield counterparts without their IDs, explaining to referee Gregory Daley that the competition committee's George Forbes had instructed them to call him when they got to the venue so he could explain the absence of their IDs to the referee.

Delay

"Mr Forbes said that I should call him so that he can explain the delay of the IDs to the referee," says Diana Gopaulsingh, the manager of the Manning's team.

However, with Gopaulsingh's attempts to contact Forbes proving futile, referee Daley, whose organisation had received specific instruction from ISSA not to allow players to play without IDs, was left in a quandary.

To compound the matter, Petersfield's coach, Carl 'Long Life' Palmer, whose team had five players unable to play on account of not receiving their IDs, was adamant that if Mannings were to get an allowance to use players without IDs, he would be demanding the same treatment.

At Green Pond High School, the home team was belatedly granted permission to play five players who had no identification cards after the team's coach, Dane Randall, placed a call to Forbes and had him confirm with referee Jeffrey Reece that the names on the match card were all legitimate.

Competitions committee

When ISSA was contacted for a comment on the situation, Step-hanie Baker, of the competitions committee, who addressed the issue in the absence of Forbes, explained the procedure to procure IDs and blamed the schools, which are now without their IDs, for being tardy.

"The schools were all given a deadline to submit their documents and those who submitted their documents on time have received their IDs," Baker said, "Some schools did not submit their documents on time and they are the ones without IDs now."

On Tuesday, three games were not played as Balaclava from Zone E and Seaforth and Robert Lightbourne from Zone L (b) all reported to their games without IDs.