FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — The Fairfax High School football team will be banned from this year’s playoffs and placed on probation for the rest of the season after a Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) internal investigation found coaches broke player recruitment rules during the 2024 season.

The school district sent the following statement:

Following an internal investigation, Fairfax County Public Schools has determined Fairfax High School (FHS) football coaching staff violated Virginia High School League (VHSL) policies regarding player recruitment in 2024. As the governing body for all high school athletics in Virginia, VHSL has announced that the team will be on probation for the remainder of the 2025-26 season. This means the FHS football team will not be able to participate in the postseason.We want to acknowledge that this news comes as a significant disappointment for the players and their families. However, FCPS remains committed to upholding the values of VHSL programs to ‘promote education, leadership, sportsmanship, character and citizenship for students by establishing and maintaining high standards for school activities and competitions.’

School board member Mateo Dunne told 7News he cannot comment on this specific case, since it is still facing a separate independent investigation, but said he feels for the student-athletes who did not break the rules.

“I think it’s unfortunate any time football players or any student-athlete are denied the opportunity to participate because the amount of effort that goes into training, to practicing, to really giving all for your team on the field, to be denied that opportunity is really unfortunate,” Dunne said.

7News On Your Side texted the school’s head football coach to ask for his response to these punishments, but he did not respond before deadline.

FCPS placed two coached on administrative leave related to this case in July.

We asked if they are still on leave, and if they are facing additional disciplinary action, but the spokesperson just sent the same statement that did not specify punishments for any specific coaches.

This is the second year in a row one of the high school football teams in the school district has been caught breaking recruiting rules.

Last year, Hayfield Secondary School’s football team withdrew from the playoffs amid the controversy surrounding their use of dozens of players who transferred into the school before the season.

That decision came less than 24 hours after the Fairfax County Times reported they had obtained text messages sent by Hayfield’s then-athletic director Monty Fritts, which seemingly suggested listing some transferring students as homeless so they would be allowed to play at Hayfield.

Initially, VHSL handed down a two-year playoff ban to Hayfield over alleged recruiting violations. Before the season began, 31 players transferred to the Alexandria school, about half from new head coach Darryl Overton’s prior school.

Last year’s playoff matchups were set without Hayfield in the bracket. However, a judge ruled to pause the ban just hours before the first games’ kickoff, forcing VHSL to postpone the games in order to re-seed the bracket with Hayfield as the top seed.

Hayfield won their first round game, but dropped out after the athletic director’s text messages surface and before the second round.

This saga sparked an external, independent investigation, which Dunne said will now include the Fairfax High School case.

“For the Fairfax case, it has been referred to the same outside law firm leading the investigation for Hayfield. We expect, in a similar time frame, for the report to be delivered for Fairfax and for Hayfield,” Dunne said. “The independent investigation is ongoing. I believe in the coming months we’ll receive the final report from the outside law firm that we hired.”

Fairfax High School had played their first five games, reaching the exact half-way point of the season.

Moving forward, Dunne said the school district needs to ensure all teams are following the rules to avoid outcomes like this.

“I think what these situations really highlight is the need to maintain the integrity of our student-athletes and athletics program. Without that integrity, without consistent enforcement of the rules and ensuring there’s good sportsmanship at all times, and coaches are following the rules, then you’ll have, inevitably, a number of situations that may result in teams losing their opportunity to participate in the postseason, players losing eligibility, and being harmed as a result,” Dunne said. “It can impact their ability to be recruited by college coaches. It can put a tarnish on the whole program, which can then be imputed to the players. That’s unfortunate because, right now, we really don’t know the facts of what happened and we’re still waiting on what the investigation says.”