Their future lies in their own hands after they were issued a suspended sentence by delegates of the Jersey Football Combination on Friday night – one that will run until the end of the 2017/18 season.
Portuguese have had three misconduct charges proven against them in a seven-week period and another, which has been taken into consideration, is still under investigation when their players walked off the pitch late in a Premiership game against Jersey Wanderers.
The JFC’s executive committee proposed the sentence be served on Portuguese, and the recommendation was carried unanimously.
Combination president Charlie Browne said: ‘The delegates were 100 per cent in favour of the suspended sentence; it’s good to see that everyone is standing shoulder-to-shoulder to tackle this problem.
‘Incidents like this have done a lot of damage, both for the image of the game and the Combination, which has lost a vice-president because Mark Le Cornu has stood down to give his full support to the referees.
‘Mark has been a great servant to the league over the years and although he has stepped down he will continue his roles of being junior league registrations secretary and collator of all the results.’
Browne says the Combination has the power to de-register players and not accept managers or coaches who are repeat offenders, and they will deal with matters accordingly if they have to.
Browne added: ‘We’ve got to do something to send the message out that we will take action against persistent offenders.
‘We have the power in our rules to deal with anyone who steps out of line and we are looking at that now.
‘As for the Portuguese, this is now a tremendous opportunity for them to do something positive because the future of their club is now in their own hands.
‘As football administrators all we want to see is a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone to play football in.’
Jersey Portuguese and Grouville were fined £100 and £50 respectively by the Jersey Football Association following their recently abandoned reserve game at Springfield with the Combination deciding the fixture is now null and void.
