President of Jamaica’s ruling football body, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), Michael Ricketts, believes the one-sided scores witnessed in the schoolboy competitions require no changes in the structure of the competitions and rebuffed suggestions of implementing a second-division or two-tier competitions.

Last Saturday, Kingston College thrashed Cumberland High 18-0, and the discussion has raised its head once again, whether these minnow schools should be playing in a lower division and earning their spot via promotion to the Manning Cup or DaCosta Cup.

“I remembered when I used to go Glenmuir in the early days, it was the same kind of scenario where we used to get 8, 10 and 12,” Ricketts revealed to Our Today.

“Now Glenmuir giving 8, 10 and 12. So it just depends on the interest the schools have in developing their programmes,” he noted.

A perfect example would be the 1991 Manning Cup champions Ardenne High playing twice this season and conceding 19 goals, losing 0-9 to Hydel High and 0-10 to Eltham High.

Then in the clashes of the lesser-known schools that could be in tier two, Gaynstead High were beaten 1-7 by Tarrant High and 0-9 to Jonathan Grant High, results that supported Ricketts.

“Even if we go tier one and tier two, teams in tier one still sometime or the other going to get 10 or 12 until they are serious about their development programme,” he argued. “So, if you are in tier one or tier two, you[‘re] still going to get beat up depending on how interested you are in your football programme.”

He added: “Honestly, I will leave it this way because Vere used to beat up Glenmuir 8 and 10 and we were never able to pass the first round. Now, Glenmuir is doing the same thing to other schools simply because Glenmuir has developed a proper sporting programme, specifically a football programme, so that any school that develops their football programme will be competitive,” Ricketts reiterated.

Over the years, there have been suggestions that the urban area Walker Cup and rural Ben Francis Cup be used for the tier two teams.

The Inter-secondary Schools’ Sports Association (ISSA) tweaked the format of both competitions with the Walker Cup and Ben Francis competitions now being contested by the teams that failed to reach the semi-final rounds.

But ISSA President Keith Wellington told Our Today he could not comment on the issue at this time.

“No official position can be taken without a discussion with [the] membership,” said Wellington, who is principal of many-time champion St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS).

In the meantime, social media has voiced its opinion on the format of schoolboy football with some users requesting that ISSA reduce the number of schools in both Manning and DaCosta Cup because some schools are only participating for participation’s sake with no real aim.