Franklin High School will have to forfeit 19 victories for the past three seasons and will be banned from competing in the playoffs for the next four years, a regional commissioner of the California Interscholastic Federation said.

The penalties are the final step in a six-month probe alleging that a Samoa-based relative of an assistant football coach paid the students' parents to send their sons from the remote South Pacific territory to arid Stockton to play sports.

Fourteen students and their families flew to California on tickets purchased by the coach's mother and stayed in motels paid for by Franklin High School personnel, authorities said.

The coaches then helped the parents get fake utility bills to establish their sons' residency, and the new recruits advanced the Yellowjackets' standing within the league, officials said.

Officials believe more than $60,000 was spent on players and their families.

"This was a calculated scheme," said Pete Saco, a commissioner for the federation office governing high school sports from Grass Valley to Merced. "Cheating won't be tolerated."

Saco said administrators would monitor the school's program until fall 2014, and three American Samoan players on this year's team also would be banned from competing in sports through the end of the academic year.

Stockton Unified School District Superintendent Jack McLaughlin said today the charges were "completely unfounded" and that the district is exploring whether to take the case to court.

While not criminal, athletic recruiting at the high school level is not permitted by high school sports governing bodies in United States, along with exercising "undue influence" to coerce young students to switch schools, sports authorities said.

"We haven't had our day in court," McLaughlin said. "This is about defending our future, past and present students, and we're guilty until proven innocent under this system."

Two weeks ago, parents of two young Samoan recruits sued the federation office for negligence and invasion of privacy.

The claim filed in the U.S. Territory's High Court also names the local sports authorities' lawyer and consultant, who questioned them last summer when they visited the South Pacific island. The federation says it launched the probe after a high school football coach in the capital city of Pago Pago called Saco in March.