The seven Bermuda Under-23 players who were arrested on drug possession charges in Miami, Florida, will be invited to appear before Government's Board of Inquiry, its chairman Sir John Sharpe confirmed yesterday.

But Sir John pointed out that the players concerned, Meshach Wade, Kevin Jennings, Donnie Charles, Herbie Dillas, Shawn Riley, Keishon Smith and Tokia Russell, who were released after pleading `no contest', were not obligated to make an appearance. During the two months the players were in Florida, the Board of Inquiry was set up as a consequence of the problems experienced by the Bermuda Under-23 national team. The Board's terms of reference are: "To inquire into all the circumstances leading up to, and surrounding the arrest in Miami on December 9 of members of the Under-23 Bermuda National team returning from the qualifying matches for the 1995 Pan-Am Games held in Jamaica, and generally into the incidence of misuse of drugs in relation to football in Bermuda, and into any other matters which appear to the Board to be relevant, and to make recommendations aimed at encouraging a drug-free environment within organised football in Bermuda.'' Sir John admitted yesterday to being "quite pleased'' with the way things had gone over the last month and was hoping to meet with other members of the team now that the remaining players in the squad had returned from the United States.

"It only remains now, and this is something we will be contacting (coach) Mark Trott about, to see if it's possible,'' said Sir John.

"We have met some of the players, the captain and co-captains and we will be in contact with Mark Trott this week to see if the team per se, now that the others are back, would like to meet with us.

"We can't make anybody appear but we hope to meet all those players with the team who would wish to meet with us, with the main objective being what improvement of the organisations of these tours can be considered, more particularly how any repetition of what happened might be avoided.'' Accompanying Sir John on the Board of Inquiry are Eugene Blakeney and Kenneth Richardson, who are also honorary vice presidents of the Bermuda Football Association, and Calvin (Bummy) Symonds and Louis Mowbray.

"Things have been going very well,'' said Sir John. "Over the last four weeks we've been meeting every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon from about two o'clock to six, sometimes later, during which time we have met with about 40 to 50 different individuals, clubs and organisations to try and get some useful imput for our report.

"We've had very forthcoming response from the BFA, from the officials who accompanied the team there (Jamaica), the captain, from clubs, coaches, referees and from the drug agencies themselves. We've seen virtually everybody, and sometimes we've seen them twice, when we thought they could be of assistance to us in consideration of our terms of reference.'' Sir John said there was still plenty of work to be done, though a great deal had already been accomplished. The severity of the drug problem in Bermuda has, he said, been made quite obvious by the various submissions.

"The bottom line is, as the terms of reference say, encouraging a drug-free environment in organised soccer in Bermuda,'' said the chairman.

"There's no doubt about it, from our interviews, that it's a fairly drug-infested area right now.

"We want to see if we can make some recommendations aimed at moving towards at least a drug-free environment in organised football. We're catching our breath this week but we'll meet amongst ourselves on Thursday just to determine the shape of our report and whether or not there is anybody else we want to see, or see again.

"We've got an awful lot in writing that needs to be read and digested, which we haven't had time to do so far because our main thrust has been talking with people.'' Added the chairman: "We're pleased that people, in some cases, are eager to see us and felt free to talk frankly to us.'' Sir John Sharpe