The Fiji Secondary Schools Rugby Union is standing firm with its decision and ruling against Bucalevu Secondary School.
Bucalevu’s place in the Vodafone Super Deans national quarter-final was revoked and the win was awarded to Nabua Secondary School, after it was discovered that the northern school had fielded an unregistered player in their under-17 team during the playoffs in Labasa last weekend.
The FSSRU was then brought under the spotlight with matters pertaining to biasness to northern schools surfacing.
Executive members of the FSSRU met on Friday night to seek legal advice on how to deal with the matter, given that the news had reached the Minister of Education.
Minister Aseri Radrodro was awaiting a report from the FSSRU yesterday.
“We have given our report last night (Friday) and we are awaiting a time that they (Ministry of Education) will address the media to clear the issue, but from the FSSRU perspective, our ruling remains,” vice-president Savenaca Muamua stated.
Muamua said they acted upon the rules of their constitution, and they will stick by that.
“Our meeting was just based on sorting legal opinion, nothing to change the ruling. The ruling remains because it is the rule of the game and the Minister of Education, his PS are all aware of this.
“We sought for legal opinion because things were getting out of hand, and it has gone to authorities higher than our executives.”
To avoid more damage, the FSSRU had settled for a resolution that is fair on all participating teams and zones.
“The ruling on not fielding an unregistered player remains. Bucalevu has accepted that they were in the wrong. I saw that they have taken down the video otherwise it may reverse the decision which means under the code of conduct in our constitution, a team can be fined or banned, and we don’t want to go down that path,” Muamua said.
Muamua told Times Sport that Terms of Participation is released to all schools at the beginning of the season.
He also said they are considering changes to the format to better cater for maritime schools in terms of national quarter spots allocation. Meanwhile, the nationals Deans quarter-finals will be played at Suva’s HFC Bank Stadium next Saturday.