- No professionals in our sports – Wellington ISSA keeping a close eye schoolboys playing in RSPL

Keith Wellington, the president of the Inter Secondary Sc hools Sports Association (ISSA), said that he has no problems with schoolboy players playing in the Red Stripe Premier but stresses that those with professional contracts are excluded from schoolboy play.

The St Elizabeth Technical High School principal said that once players have signed professional contracts with their respective clubs, they are no longer eligible to continue playing at the schoolboy level.

"Once they have signed a professional contract where they are compensated, we don't accept them participating," he told STAR Sports.

Wellington further went on to say that schoolboy players can play in the league once their schoolboy seasons have been completed.

"We have no issues with a player who wants to play RSPL after he has completed his schoolboy football season even if he is going to come back to play schoolboy football next season," he told STAR Sports. "The only issue that we have is where they would have signed a professional contract which ties them to the club."

He said that the rule came into effect as a result of the incident at Champs 2015 when then Calabar sprinter Michael O'Hara was made a brand ambassador to Digicel and went pro.

"It was a decision taken by the membership that we would not allow professional athletes to participate in our competition. And this would have been prompted by the O'Hara/Digicel situation at Champs 2015."

Still unclear

Clarendon College student Lamar Walker, who was instrumental in the chapelton-based institution's title campaign last year, has not featured in the daCosta Cup this season as it is still unclear whether he is a professional player or not. Walker plays for defending RSPL champions Portmore United and has been called up recently to the Jamaica national senior team.

Wellington said that there is no rule currently that prohibits schoolboy players from playing in the nation's top flight.

"There is no rule that prohibits them for playing Red Stripe Premier League as well as Schoolboy football. We had an understanding with the previous JFF administration where we ask that they not play both competitions simultaneously but they would be allowed to participate as soon as their teams are no longer involved in schoolboy football," he said.

"We recognised that we had at least one player who played both competitions simultaneously but there is no rule against it."