… Guyana ‘gathering’ information on Soca Warriors fielding ineligible player

FOLLOWING the revelation by Inside World Football that Trinidad and Tobago might have fielded an eligible player in the Dominican Republic, during the opening round of matches in the FIFA 2022 Qatar World Cup Qualifiers, president of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), Wayne Forde, said they’re duty-bound to file a protest to CONCACAF and FIFA once they can validate the report.

Trinidad and Tobago are drawn alongside Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas. Having opened with a 3-0 win against Golden Jaguars, Soca Warriors followed up with a 1-1 draw against Puerto Rico, and in doing so brought on registered player agent Andre Boucard.

Boucard, 36, who last featured for Trinidad and Tobago in March 2017, had not played for at least seven months before his call-up by coach Terry Fenwick.

The Inside World Football report stated that Trinidad and Tobago registered Boucard as playing for Maidstone United in England’s sixth tier, though a search of records shows no indication of his registration.

However, Inside World Football noted that he was registered as a player intermediary with the English FA.

English FA rules expressly prohibit an agent playing competitively in the elite professional and semi-professional tiers of the game.

Rule 1.2 of Appendix II in the English FA rules states; “An Official (as defined by the FIFA Statutes or any successor here to) or a Player cannot be an Intermediary. An Intermediary becoming an Official or a Player shall have his Registration suspended for as long as he remains an Official or a Player.”

Boucard was subsequently pulled from the list of English FA player agents and his licence temporarily suspended.

In an interview, first published on NCN Sport News, Forde said GFF has been “busy trying to ascertain the facts, based on the report and once those facts are confirmed then we will do our due diligence in checking the regulations to see whether the issued raised in that article are legitimate and represent sufficient grounds for a formal protest.”

“Once we would have established those grounds then clearly we have an obligation and responsibility to submit a formal protest to CONCACAF and FIFA,” Forde said.

The English FA say their rules mirror those of FIFA and while the conflicts that would arise with a player also being an agent are obvious, FIFA’s own rules don’t specifically mention players cannot be agents, though the wording implies that is the case.

However, FIFA’s rules are very clear over sanctions that would be applied if an ineligible player took part in an official match. In this case the sanction would be to forfeit the game.

FIFA’s rules on eligibility reads: “1. If a player takes part in an official match despite being ineligible, his team will be sanctioned by forfeiting the match (cf. art. 31) and paying a minimum fine of CHF 6,000. If a player takes part in a friendly match despite being ineligible, his team will be sanctioned by forfeiting the match and paying a minimum fine of CHF 4,000.”