Franklin football boosters accuse rival Americas player of exposing their team to virus

EL PASO, Texas -- A conversation between parents has caused outrage with in the Franklin Football Booster Club.

After the Americas Trailblazers football team lost to the Franklin Cougars, the very next day both teams were placed in the Covid-19 quarantine process due to an Americas football player testing positive for the virus.

Joe Moreno, the parent of a Franklin player, shared with ABC-7 a conversation he had with an Americas football player's parent, that the Cougar team believes is the reason for their season coming to an end.

“A kid had symptoms on Tuesday and then on Thursday he took the test and he played Friday and got the results Saturday,” Moreno shared.

The president of the Franklin Football Booster club David Byrd relayed his frustrations.

“Whether they knew or didn’t know is irrelevant other than the fact that we see it, they had a kid that was Covid positive and played in the game Friday night,” Byrd said.

The quarantine forced the Franklin football team to register forfeit losses, effectively keeping them from the UIL playoffs.

One of the teams that will receive a forfeit victory over the Franklin Cougars is Socorro High School, a football team that has not won a game in over 50 attempts.

Byrd said he has a way he believes would fix the situation saying, “I threw out the possibility of trading games. We took a forfeit loss to Socorro last night, Monday night. As I understand it Americas is scheduled to play Socorro Saturday. All right give us your game on Saturday and you take the forfeit loss against Socorro.”

ABC-7 reached out to the Socorro Independent School district for a comment.  SISD responded by saying the following...

"Socorro ISD teams follow extensive Covid safety protocols, including a daily health screening for all individuals. If an individual is displaying symptoms, awaiting Covid test results or been in close contact with an individual that has tested positive, they are not allowed to participate or be on campus until cleared by the district’s health safety team. If an individual reports having tested positive, our district nurses conduct extensive contact tracing investigations and proactively inform all parties who may have had close contact with the individual."