ISSA targets greater quality in schoolboy football revamp

The Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) will introduce a new and hopefully more exciting format for schoolboy football for the upcoming season with the aim of prioritising quality over quantity.

The schoolboy football season is set to start on September 5 with the first round of the Manning Cup and daCosta Cup competitions before the staging of the Walker and Ben Francis cups between September 19-October 17, which will be followed by the resumption of the league competitions, the Jamaica Observer has learned.

In addition to the new format seeing the top 15 teams from both the daCosta and Manning Cup competitions skipping the first round, which will see teams playing each other once in their groups, the format will allow for double champions in both competitions with the Walker and Ben Francis Cups to be contested by the top schools.

With the emergence of the ISSA Presidents Cup, the regional cups had taken a lower status with only teams that were out of contention for the major trophies, allowed to compete.

According to ISSA President Keith Wellington, the new format will see two champions being crowned by midway the season with the Ben Francis and Walker Cup being decided by the middle of October.

Maldon High’s midfielder Kevin Hawthorne comes under pressure from Cornwall College’s Shakeem Gibson in their ISSA daCosta Cup Round of 16 game played at Cornwall College on October 22, 2025. Cornwall College won 6-1. Photo: Paul Reid

“The competitions have grown over the years with a lot of teams taking part and while not every team will be contenders, we saw the need to tighten up the season, we want to ensure the quality of the competitions and to ensure that the excitement for both fans and sponsors is kept up,” Wellington told the
Jamaica Observer on Friday.

Wellington, who also said they were still in negotiation with sponsors, saying they were still hoping others would be brought on board as well, said the new format was not an experiment.

“We are still trying to find the best format and we hope to keep this for the next two to three seasons and hopefully build on it, so no, this is not an experiment for just one season,” he said about the format that was discussed at Wednesday’s annual planning meeting held at Manchester High School.

The original idea was for the teams that qualified for the round of 16 last season to get a bye through the first round but with Maldon High from the daCosta Cup and Hydel High of the Manning Cup not participating this season, the organisers gave the byes to the top 15 teams.

The remaining teams will play the first round which will consist of 36 teams from the daCosta Cup and 24 from the Manning Cup advancing to the second round.