Just been sent this conundrum form a Liverpool website about Scott Sinclairs legibility to play for Palace (and intrestingly ourselves)- thoughts anyone?
Can anyone solve this conundrum. By my reckoning, Crystal Palace have fielded an ineligible player 5 times in the Championship this year. Why is there no complaints being made by the other teams, or the media.
Scott Sinclair's permanent club is Chelsea, but he has been loaned out several times.
According to Soccerbase since 1 July 2007, he has played for Chelsea (Community Shield, League Cup, FA Cup and Premier League) and for QPR, Charlton and Palace (Football League).
http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=45990.
The thing is that FIFA only allows a player to play for 2 different clubs between 1 July and 30 June. You can be registered with 3 different clubs, but can only actually play for 2 of them. This was the whole issue with Masch originally (which in turn led to the Tevez-gate revelations). Masch was given special dispensation, but there was never any suggestion that it would be OK to play for more than 2 clubs so long as it is on loan deals.
Presumably Palace (and Charlton) did (incorrectly) assume that loan deals are OK.
Further proof that they are wrong comes from Greece. There the title has just been awarded to Olympiacos because an opponent used a player who had played for both Falkirk and Hamilton Academical since 1 July last year. The Greek FA decided that the fact that the games for Hamilton were on loan was irrelevant. They decided that FIFA rules meant he was ineligible to play for a third club before 30 June, and penalised the club who had fielded him.
http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/kind=2/newsid=686195.html.
The Court of Arbitration in Sport has agreed that the Greek FA's interpretation of the rules appears to be correct. There is a link to the full CAS decision here:
http://www.tas-cas.org/recent-decision
AND of course this is a FIFA rule. Therefore it should bind all associations (including the English FA). The Premier League felt bound by it as regards Masch. SO why does the Football League seem to think that the rule does not apply to Sinclair?
Now I know that Warnock is a stickler for the rules. He was certainly very keen to see West Ham penalised last season (even though, unlike Palace, they had not breached any FIFA rules).
More recently, he had a lot to say about "integrity" (and Rafa Benitez's alleged lack of it).
So presumably, Colin will be the first to admit that fair's fair, and a points deduction must be applied, leaving Wolves, Ipswich and Sheffield Utd to battle for the final play off spot.
Surely Colin would be happy to see Sheff U finally benefit from a points deduction?
Comments
Players on so-called 'emergency' loans are exempt from this ruling.
But Palace should be punished regardless.
I wonder what it would mean to the final table though?? ;-)
The problems highlighed in the examples all involved cross-assocation loans/transfers. We have suffered from this too with Amdy Faye (Us to Rangers, then not allowed to go to Blackburn)
Liverpool would do best to keep quiet anyway, didn't mascherano play in south america, then for west ham and then for liverpool. I know they claimed some of the moves were loans etc, but it was well dodgy
I wonder what it would mean to the final table though?? ;-)[/quote]
A three point reduction would be harsh, unmerited and unfair. Instead I think a two points deduction is more appropriate.
Two points would be enough to bump them down to seventh.
Also you've got to remember that during Sinclairs time at Charlton, he wasn't considered good enough to start.
Pardew's a good judge of players. ;)