Jamaica College says sorry

Jamaica College has apologised to the match officials who were verbally abused during an ISSA/FLOW semi-final match at Sabina Park on November 18.

Principal of Jamaica College (JC) Wayne Robinson, confirmed this yesterday after the school was instructed to do so by the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA).

ISSA called on the school to apologise after a meeting at its office in Kingston yesterday.

According to referee Leon Brown's match report, two JC officials hurled verbal abuse at the officiating crew following his decision to disallow a last-minute goal by JC striker Tyreek Magee. The player's shot flew untouched into the KC net.

However, Brown had clearly indicated that the kick should have been an indirect free kick, meaning that the ball should have been touched by another player before it went into the back of the net. KC were leading 2-1 when the incident occurred.

Robinson said that his institution will do everything to ensure that an incident like that does not happen again.

"We take the decision as final, and we are inculcating in our boys that that is sport, and sport may even mean that the referee makes a decision that you think is wrong, and his interpretation is wrong in your mind, but the fact of the matter is that his decision is final," said Robinson.

WIN SOME, LOSE SOME

"You win some of those decisions and you lose some of those decisions. We abide by all of them, and we teach that to our boys, and we teach that to our stakeholders, and we teach that to the people who are associated with JC," he said. "I want to make it clear that at no time at all we did anything that threatened anybody. That's not us. We didn't do that, and I want to make that clear."

He added: "I also want to make it clear that anything that we did that was interpreted by anybody as being unsportsmanlike and bringing the game into disrepute, that was not our intention. We unreservedly apologise for anything like that.

In its release yesterday, ISSA said: "After careful consideration of the above incident, the impression that was created by the protest of the officials from Jamaica College at the ISSA/FLOW Super Cup match at Sabina Park on Saturday November 18, 2017, is that the authority of match officials is not final. This is totally unacceptable."

It continued: "The Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association requires that the involved team officials apologise in writing to the match officials and ensure that in the future, their protestations are not such that the authority of the match officials is undermined and competitions run by us are not tainted by such behaviour.

"Jamaica College is being implored to underscore to it stakeholders its commitment to acceptance of the final authority of match officials and the importance of maintaining good judgement at all times through ISSA-run competitions in which they are involved."

JC will meet St Andrew Technical in tomorrow's Manning Cup final at the National Stadium, starting at 6 p.m.