Wright calls for lengthened daCosta Cup season

ISSA/FLOW daCosta Cup chairman Linvern Wright has suggested that the competition should be extended to address the issue of schoolboy footballers playing too many games in a short period of time.

The well-being of student-athletes has been the issue of debate in recent times, as this season has seen footballers playing five games in 11 and 12 days in the first round of the competition.

In the aftermath of the death of the late Dominic James of St Georges College and basketballer Saymar Ramsey of Spot Valley, who both collapsed and died while playing in ISSA competitions last year, there have been calls for more attention on the health and workload of these student-athletes. The daCosta Cup fixtures were revised this year to eliminate predictability, but little has been done in protecting the health of these student-athletes. Even with the revision of the substitution rule to five in schoolboy matches, it will be difficult for these boys to recover in the short time span allotted.

When asked about the implementation that ISSA has put in place to protect the health of these student-athletes, Linvern Wright chairman of the daCosta Cup told Star Sports that the competition would have to be extended to facilitate change to the already compact daCosta Cup season.

"In the expense of it, as principal, one of the things I know is to have it less strenuous on them (the players)," Wright said. "We would have to lengthen the competition and maybe go to February. What we will have to determine is whether or not we want to have them more than half the school year playing football. It's a tough situation, I'm not thinking it's the more desirable thing, but as we have it now maybe it needs to be revised. But I don't know if we have an even solution to it right now," said Wright, who is also principal of Rusea's High.