By LARRY VAUGHT

BIRMINGHAM — John Wall’s eligibility at Kentucky could be in jeopardy based on what Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive confirmed to ESPN.com’s Pat Forde and Dana O’Neil.

For several weeks rumors about a potential problem with Wall’s eligibility had been surfacing and several SEC coaches at the SEC Media Day here Thursday were discreetly inquiring about whether anything new had surfaced about Wall’s status.

University of Kentucky officials said only today that he was “cleared to play” and coach John Calipari referred to Wall numerous times during his 60 minutes with the print media and made no mention of potential eligibility questions.

However, Slive said both Wall and Mississippi State freshman Renardo Sidney had eligibility issues. Sidney’s dilemma has been known for months and State coach Rick Stansbury noted that he “didn’t worry” about what he could not control and he did not know what his plight would be decided. However, Slive was the first to publicly confirm that Wall also had issues because his former AAU coach Brian Clifton was a certified agent for nearly a year until 2008 when he forfeited his license to devote all his attention to the AAU program that involved Wall.

“Those are amateur issues that arose prior to their coming to our schools,” Slive told ESPN.com of Sidney and Wall. “Those are strictly amateurism issues. As we told our people, somebody needs to determine if they are eligible. It’s not relative to you, it’s relative to them.”

Under NCAA rules,  Wall could have to repay any and all expenses Clifton paid before he can play with Kentucky and could have to sit out at least 10 percent of UK’s games as part of the punishment.

Wall was first recruited when Billy Gillispie was still coach and attended Big Blue Madness and a UK football game in 2007.

Kentucky has issued no comment on the report and an e-mail asking for comment was not answered. However, Kentucky’s policy because of privacy issues is not to discuss the eligibility of players when it comes to basketball.

According to ESPN.com’s story, under the guidelines set by the Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement, agent violations can fall under two categories:

• If an individual accepts significant monetary benefits from an agent, his or her eligibility should not be reinstated.

• If an individual accepts benefits from an agent that are not significant enough to warrant permanent ineligibility, the student-athlete will be withheld for the violation and will be required to repay the value of the benefits.

So what does this mean? Based on how Calipari has touted Wall’s potential and status on the team, including again during his comments today, it’s hard to believe the coach thinks this will be a long-term issue. Odds are UK compliance director Sandy Bell has been checking Wall’s status for weeks and soon will have a resolution to restore his eligibility.

Still, those looking to throw stones at Calipari are going to have an immense amount of fun with this even though any of the schools on his final list apparently would be facing the same problem now. As Slive noted, the issue arose “prior” to Wall coming to Kentucky.

The Cats have 31 games scheduled. If he has to sit out three regular-season games after repaying any money that is owed, he would be eligible to play against Rider on Nov. 21. If he has to miss four games, his UK debut would be Nov. 24 against Cleveland State.

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