A tough decision last week by U Sports to not let fifth year university football players play as 25-year-old’s next year was met with criticisms .
Those fifth year players who had their final season cancelled because of COVID-19, felt that it was an unfair way to end their university football careers.
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U Sports Interim CEO Dick White, was on the SportsCage on Monday, and said the age cap rule has been in place since 2013.
“It was basically brought in to try and reduce the opportunity for what might be an unsafe circumstance, football tends to be a relativity dangerous sport regardless, but this rule was to try and reduce injuries which were occurring to 28 and 29-year-old players,” White said.
“It was definitely not an easy decision to make, but as the board said with COVID coming along it didn’t necessarily change the circumstance around why the rule was brought in in the first place,” White explained.
He also said there is a desire to have a higher turnover rate when it comes to new players entering the league.
“There’s always been a real desire to see athletes move through the system in a reasonable amount of time so that new athletes would have the opportunity to join university football, and schools weren’t trying to make a team where a 28 or 29-year-old might be in the mix.”
The University of Regina Rams had seven fifth year players on their 2020 roster.
