Lisbon High School football field in December 2024. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

The Lisbon High School varsity football team will return to the gridiron next season — with some stipulations — after the school won its appeal with the Maine Principals’ Association on Thursday.

Under MPA rules, the team had been suspended from competing for two years after it forfeited the season amid hazing allegations.

Lisbon Schools Superintendent Richard Green and Athletic Director Chris Spaulding presented their case during a virtual meeting with the MPA’s Interscholastic Management Committee.

The discussion was held in executive session and closed to the public, due to confidentiality concerns. After nearly an hour, the committee returned and announced it had voted to 5-2 to approve Lisbon’s appeal.

Lisbon will be allowed full participation for the 2025 season, including the postseason should it be eligible, but will be under probation.

MPA Executive Director Mike Burnham said a formal letter detailing the full probationary measures and stipulations is currently being drafted.

Interscholastic Management Committee member and Yarmouth High Principal Patrick Hartnett gave a brief overview of what the letter will include when announcing the committee’s decision, saying that despite winning its appeal, Lisbon will still need to show “clear evidence of a culture shift in the program.”

Lisbon forfeited its final four games of the 2024 season in the wake of hazing allegations. Portland law firm Drummond Woodsum led an investigation into the incidents and found that there was a “culture of hazing and roughhousing” within the Lisbon football program. Seven players were ultimately removed from the team. The firm’s final report was issued in late October.

Hartnett added that no coaches implicated in the investigation should be allowed to return, and future coaches should be required to complete anti-hazing training . The school announced in January that it would not bring back coach Chris Kates, who was hired in 2017.

Hartnett also said that there should be “clearer policies and procedures around co-curricular supervision, to ensure that the lack of oversight does not happen again, at least in terms of policy and procedural expectations.”

When asked what would happen if Lisbon could not provide “clear evidence,” Burnham said that is to be determined.

“(Lisbon) outlined a number of steps that they’ve taken around culture issues, recommendations maybe that came from the law firm that conducted the investigation,” Burnham said. “And I believe the probation is just a follow up that all of those recommendations and things that they outlined were being followed.”

Burnham would not comment on what specific steps Lisbon has taken.

After Lisbon won the appeal, Green released a written statement.

“I personally believe the events involving our football players that occurred off campus and in the boys’ locker room were 100% unacceptable and 100% preventable,” the superintendent wrote. “With that being said, I also believe that we have learned a hard lesson and have put many measures in place that will require increased oversight of the management/supervision of all of our athletic and co-curricular programs, including but not limited to mandated trainings and options for reporting. Please be assured that we will continue to take any measures necessary to make sure that something like this will never happen again!”

Green added that until Lisbon officials receive the formal letter of additional stipulations from the MPA, there will be no further comment.