... High price tag forces ISSA to abandon Catherine Hall for schoolboy football opener

Paul Clarke, Star Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Schoolboy football organisers ISSA have been forced to shun the Catherine Hall Complex earmarked for the highly anticipated start to the 2012 Inter-Secondary School Sports Associ-ation schoolboy football season, citing excessive cost as the major factor.

The opening matches will instead be staged at Jarett Park. According to the competiton's organisers, the operators of the Catherine Hall facility requested an additional $500,000 to host the opening ceremony and the two opening matches. Competitions director at ISSA, George Forbes, said the organisation is in no position to pay out that amount of money.

Cannot pay

"We want to play the matches at Catherine Hall, but we cannot pay what they are asking," Forbes said.

Forbes revealed that last year ISSA paid out approximately $700,000 dollars for the use of the complex, which facilitated the playing of the opening matches and the daCosta Cup final between Rusea's High School and St Elizabeth Technical.

"It cost us $700,000 last year for Catherine Hall, so to move from seven to over a million dollars, we simply cannot afford it. It"s not in our budget," Forbes added.

The official said dialogue between ISSA and the St James Parish Council, managers of the complex, which had continued up until Thursday has now completely broken down.

"The discussion between us and them to come to an amicable resolution has broken down, so we will be playing the opening matches at Jarrett Park," Forbes explained.

Jarrett Park was ISSA's design-ated venue for schoolboy football in the west, prior to the construction and opening of the Catherine Hall Sports Complex in 2010, following the upgrading of the facility by Venezuelan contractors Presport Joint Ventures, on behalf of the Urban Development Corporation.

Forbes, however, said ISSA was still looking at the possibility of hosting the final at Catherine Hall, but that depends on further dialogue.

The opening match of the double-header will feature Hydel playing Manning Cup champions St George's College at 2 p.m. and daCosta Cup champions Rusea's High tackling Herbert Morrison Technical at 4:15 p.m. In-between the two games will be the opening ceremony and dress parade.