Ontario’s premier says she had nothing to do with the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s decision to ban Mayor Rob Ford from coaching football — and so does the board, which calls Councillor Doug Ford’s claim to the contrary an “absolute fabrication.”

Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, said during a Newstalk 1010 interview Thursday that Premier Kathleen Wynne personally “fired Rob as a football coach.”

“You just don’t take a shot at the mayor when he didn’t do anything wrong and fire a football coach. It’s very simple. I’ve heard it from numerous people in the education system,” he said.

“Let’s get real here. You don’t do that without going to the minister of education. The minister of education doesn’t do anything without talking to the premier.”

Ford made similar assertions in May. Then and now, he did not offer any evidence.

In fact, the decision to fire the mayor from his longtime post at Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, and prohibit him from coaching elsewhere in the Catholic system, was made by the board’s director of education, Bruce Rodrigues.

The school’s teachers and parent council had complained to Rodrigues about disparaging comments Ford made about the school and its students in an interview with Sun News in February.

“The mayor’s involvement with the Don Bosco football team is an issue between him and the school board. The premier did not, nor would she ever, get involved in such a matter,” Wynne’s office said in an unusual news release.

The school board’s spokesman, John Yan, said Wynne had no involvement whatsoever. He denounced Doug Ford’s comments in strong terms.

“Doug Ford’s allegations have no foundation in fact or reality. Doug Ford was in the meeting that was held in the mayor’s office between our director of education, Bruce Rodrigues, the mayor, and (then-chief of staff) Mark Towhey, where we went over the reasons why Mr. Ford could be dismissed. He knows those reasons, and for him to say otherwise is an absolute fabrication,” Yan said.

“We’re in the business of education, not politics. To think that the largest publicly funded Catholic school board in the world, responsible for 92,000 students and a $1.1 billion budget, has to deal with the dismissal of a volunteer coach at the ministry level is — short of ludicrous.”

Doug Ford retreated from his comments slightly after Wynne issued her statement. He told reporters that Wynne didn’t “sign the papers” and wasn’t “involved in making it happen” but was “advised” of the decision in advance. And he said he did not believe her statement.

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