Bermuda Football Association last night confirmed two and three year suspensions for the Under-23 players.

The players, Meshach Wade, Herbie Dillas, Donnie Charles, Shawn Riley, Keishon Smith, Tokia Russell and Kevin Jennings have all had the provisional bans of seven years domestically and life internationally drastically reduced by the association, who had been in consultation with lawyers as well as both the regional body of football, CONCACAF, and the world governing body, FIFA, over the last few weeks.

As a result the players will all be ineligible to play locally until April 30, 1998 and April 30, 1997 at the international level. Their domestic ban will involve the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons. Their next matches locally will be in September, 1997.

"I can confirm that the executive committee of the Bermuda Football Association has reached a decision with reference to the playing status of the seven members of the Under-23 football team who were arrested in Miami late last year,'' association president Richard Thompson said in a prepared statement last night.

"The players have all been suspended from international football competition until April 30, 1998 and from local football competition until April 30, 1997.

These decisions were made after having taken legal advice, and after consultations with both CONCACAF and FIFA.'' One of the factors the BFA took into consideration when imposing the ban was the fact that the charges of importation of marijuana into the United States -- by far the more serious of the two charges -- were dropped by the American authorities.

Instead the only change levied against the players was one of possession, to which they pleaded no contest in a Miami court. Subsequently the BFA could only consider the charge of possession in reaching its decision.

"This accounts for the considerable drop in length of suspension from the original, provisional suspensions,'' a further statement from the association read.

"Whether `nolo contendere' pleas amount officially to admissions of guilt or not is a question the BFA felt it did not have to answer. But what is very plain is that a no contest plea is not a finding of innocence.

"There is no question that the arrests of these players in Miami brought the good name of soccer into disrepute, the good name of Bermuda into disrepute and the good name of the Bermuda Football Association into disrepute. Only if the players had been found innocent of all charges would the BFA have felt it was justified in dropping the suspensions altogether.'' And while the players' careers have been saved by the reduced bans it is not known what the positions of their clubs will be. Three of the clubs -- BAA, Devonshire Colts and North Village -- were each fined $1,000 for playing their players, Wade, Smith and Jennings, soon after the players returned to Bermuda last month. The players were also suspended until the end of the current season, a ban that will now be served concurrently with the new suspensions issued by the association.

Wade scored BAA's winning goal against Devonshire Colts and the two points were deducted from BAA who now face relegation to the Second Division. The three clubs are appealing the sanctions imposed against them.