Ninth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Margaret H. Schreiber has struck down a temporary injunction aimed at allowing an Orlando, Fla., high school to compete in the state football playoffs.
Last year, The Football Academy was banned from the Florida High School Athletic Association football postseason due to ineligible player violations. The FHSAA ban was meant to stay in place for two seasons, but TFA and parent groups filed an emergency injunction to stop the FHSAA from omitting the team from the postseason in 2025.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Schreiber sided with the FHSAA, noting that the injunction should have been filed in Alachua County and that she did not feel an evidentiary hearing was necessary.
The FHSAA released the playoff bracket, which excluded TFA, as soon as the judge’s ruling was official.
“The emergency injunction was to prevent irreparable harm from being done to TFA’s players who wouldn’t be allowed to compete in the playoffs,” Paul Aloise, the attorney representing TFA and the parents, said. “After the bracket was released, the irreparable harm has already happened. We are not going to be moving forward with any additional hearings on this matter in Alachua County. It’s dead. We have no more avenues to pursue.”
Schreiber had previously agreed to grant the emergency injunction verbally, but never signed the order after the FHSAA’s legal team filed a motion to dismiss or move the case.
Further adding to the tension is a lawsuit from Indian Rocks Christian school, demanding the FHSAA stand by the original playoff bracket. If TFA had been admitted to the playoffs, Indian Rocks Christian would have been the first team eliminated from the postseason.
Meanwhile, parents of student-athletes at TFA still call the two-year playoff ban from FHSAA “egregious and arbitrary,” and point to the penalties given to other schools as being less harsh, including cases for Miami Northwestern, Gadsen County and Nease.
