MSSA ban Stanislaus, Naval PS

The Mumbai Schools Sports Association (MSSA) has banned the hockey and football teams of St Stanislaus High School (Bandra) and Naval Public School (Colaba) for a period of two years on disciplinary grounds.u00a0

Intolerable: Players from St Stanislaus, Bandra (in green & yellow) clash with Maneckji Cooper players during the MSSA U-16 Ahmed Sailor tournament semi-finals at Azad Maidan last year. Pic/ Atul Kamble

The decision was taken at the MSSA Annual General Body meeting last month and has been conveyed to both schools.
"They have breached the MSSA constitution on numerous counts. Last season, Stanislaus made their U-12 players wear black arm-bands in protest of a decision. Then, they created problems during the U-14 football and U-16 hockey prize distribution ceremonies citing unhappiness with refereeing on both occasions. Naval Public School too created a ruckus during their U-16 hockey match against Don Bosco (Matunga). The MSSA has been in existence for over a century. We have hundreds of schools participating in over a dozen sporting disciplines. If all schools start behaving like this, it would be impossible to conduct the competitions. Therefore, we were left with no option but to ban these schools," MSSA President Fr Jude Rodrigues told MiD DAY yesterday.

The schools, however, have the option of appealing against the ban. "We have told the management of both schools that they should send us a letter of apology seeking a revoking of the ban and we may consider the same when the MSSAu00a0

executive committee meets next week," added Fr Jude.

When contacted for a reaction however, both schools preferred to be tight-lipped on the issue.u00a0