Wednesday, April 9, 2008

"And the next team drawn out of the hat is....

Cardiff City representing England."
Ho-de-ho!

If Cardiff City win the FA Cup, UEFA may allow them to enter the UEFA CUP as an honorary English club.

Which I think, given the rabid anti-Englishness of a fair proportion of their support, is quite funny. You'd like to think even Bobby Moore would appreciate the delicious irony of it all.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I noticed this in the linked report: "However, UEFA regulations prevent a league being represented in Europe by a technically ‘foreign’
club."


I wasn't aware of this, I thought UEFA had to give approval for a 'foreign' team to play in the league at all, and once that happened they were essentially not foreign any more.

I thought it was the case that, for example, UEFA had allowed Derry City to play in the LoI.

Does this mean that a team (Derry/Cardiff) doesn't don't need UEFA permission to play in a 'foreign' league, only to represent them in UEFA competitions?

It would kind of make sense I suppose - just news to me.

O'Neill said...

You're making the assumption that UEFA know their arse from their elbow- more a case of making the rules up as they go along I'd guess

Hen Ferchetan said...

This is how UEFA stands on the issue:

Clubs can only be nominated by the FA in who's league they play. So the Welsh FA cannot nominate Cardiff, only the English FA can. With the English FA saying they won;t do it Cardiff (and the other 4 Welsh clubs playing in English setup) are effectively barred from entering Europe no matter how good they became.

Last few weeks has seen both UEFA and the English FA softening their stance though-if Cardiff wins then I'd put good money on the English FA nominating them.

O'Neill said...

Well then, the English FA are wrong. If cardiff can play in their tournaments then natural justice dictats that they can also represent them on the wider stage.

Hen Ferchetan said...

It will be changed next week - the Premier Clubs have already voted to let the Welsh club play in Europe if they earn the right. Fa will follow, especially with Platini putting so much pressure on them.

As you say, it makes sense. If they're invited to play in the cup it's stupid to deny them the rewars if they actually win it.