No wonder dentists supposedly have the highest rate of suicide in the professions when you consider some of this wit!
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No wonder dentists supposedly have the highest rate of suicide in the professions when you consider some of this wit!
Quick reference was made to this issue in the sports news on Today fm just there, so I looked it up and this is the only source I could find due to the Times online pay-to-view policy.
http://www.joe.ie/football/football-...uros-0019568-1
Basic premise of the story is that the IFA intend to drag their heels regarding McClean's ability to complete his switch. What powers do the North hold in this regard?
As far as I'm aware, McClean as well as the IFA and the FAI need to complete paperwork. The natural bureaucratic process delays the switch being official, but the IFA can stall if they so wish. When the IFA dragged Daniel Kearns, the FAI and FIFA to Switzerland, for example, no player's switch was finalised until after the case/outcome.
McClean can, however, take part in the squad for the upcoming game, but only for training purposes. He won't be able to play if it is not official.
That's certainly not optimal. For how long could an association potentially stall a switch? Indefinitely? Can FIFA force the process through with deadlines?
Out of interest, if a team was to play an ineligible player in a friendly, what, if any, would the punishment be?
Did a quick search in the statutes and there doesn't seem to be any differentiation made by FIFA in terms of eligibility FOR a friendly match (in that eligibility for a friendly game is the same as that as a competitive "A" match).
The differentiation made between friendlies and competitive matches seems to only pertain to the acquisition of the "new" nationality.
However, I stand corrected if anyone can find anything saying otherwise as I only did a quick search.
To be honest, I'm not aware of the intricacies, but I believe that they can frustrate the bureaucratic process by waiting until the last minute, inaction, or otherwise. I imagine that if there is a deadline, the player and the FAI could complain to FIFA. In which case, I imagine the player could bring the IFA to the CAS? There's an idea.
Would the IFA administrators be so petty?
This is the association that brought Daniel Kearns to court in Switzerland.
If they are frustrating the process in this case - for McClean and O'Kane - then it will only reflect badly. Silly sausages.
Let's face it, it should be a simple procedure to switch.
It would be deplorable if the IFA tried to delay it and it would reflect very badly on them if they tried to delay the process.
Let's fact it, that article is very very vague.
The FAI 'could encounter difficulties from the Irish Football Association'
'the FAI will need co-operation from their counterparts in the IFA, something that could prove tricky'
Not even a quote from a source close to the IFA.
This piece by Paul Rowan was posted on OWC earlier. It was published yesterday, but not sure where exactly as I can't seem to find it online.
To be honest, I can't see the IFA behaving in such a petty and unprofessional manner so as to intentionally delay the switch process. I'm sure FIFA have rules and time-limits in place with some sort of reprimand in place for those failing to satisfy them. How would the process operate otherwise? Why would any association bother signing anything if there was no obligation to do it? These articles are all very vague and speculative; journalists pretending they know more than they actually do.Quote:
FAI in race to recruit McClean for Euros
The Republic of Ireland are involved in a race to have Sunderland midfielder James McClean available for the European Championships, but officials in Dublin are afraid that Northern Ireland may yet get in the way of the plan.
McClean signed elibility papers last week having received indications that he would be picked for the friendly squad against the Czech Republic on February 29, but the co-operation of the Irish Football Association in Belfast will be needed for that to happen and that could prove a problem given the level of anger in Northern Ireland football circles about the continued defections to the Republic.
It is believed to have taken about 10 months for Fifa to process the papers concerning the transfer of the former West Ham United player, Daniel Kearns, from the North to the Republic, with the process drawn out because the IFA didn’t immediately sign their side of the form which is needed for the transfer to take place.
The papers concerning another player, Derry-born Eunan O’Kane of Torquay United, are also taking a long time to go through.
Fifa confirmed last week that they have yet to receive the application concerning McClean, so the process could yet take months. That might explain why Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni, who was at Stamford Bridge yesterday to watch McClean, sounded so downbeat on Friday in Dublin about the player’s chances of making the squad. Ireland play their opening match of Euro 2012 against Croatia on June 10 and must submit their squad for the tournament by the end of May.
Trapattoni also said he had been watching McClean for six months, so the Football Association of Ireland must accept some blame for starting the application process so late, as the player declared for the Republic when he signed for Sunderland back in August.
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill has already telephoned McClean to try to change his mind, but without success. Once the eligibility form has been completed, McClean would not be able to play again for Northern Ireland, who he represented seven times at U21 level.
However, he is still prepared to go ahead with the process, even though Trapattoni was not prepared to make any guarantees about caps when he made a media appearance in Dublin on Friday.
McClean was signed by Sunderland’s previous manager Steve Bruce for Ł350,000 but was fast-tracked into the first team when Martin O’Neill replaced Bruce as manager last month. He scored on his second full appearance against Wigan Athletic and has kept his place since, featuring in yesterday’s 1-0 defeat at Chelsea.
Are the IFA still angry anyway? Officially and publicly, they've gone down the route of accepting things as they stand whilst acknowledging the ball is in their court if they wish to attract players to play for them.
Regarding Kearns, I'm pretty sure that took 10 months because of the delay caused by the CAS case, no? :confused:
The sentence I've highlighted in bold cannot be correct either. I'm not sure where he got that information from, but the cases of Tony Kane, Michael O'Connor and even Bobby Zamora stand in direct contradiction to that.
Paul Rowan writes for the Sunday Times so I assume that's where it's from.
http://greenscene.me/2011/10/eunan-o...nal-clearance/
O'Kane understood that the paperwork wouldn't be in place in time for him to play against Liechtenstein. Subsequently, the under 21's played Liechtenstein again November and O'Kane wasn't in that squad either.
Not sure if this is a relevant point, but I haven't seen Daniel Devine receive any FAI call-up since he declared his allegiance. He also played under 21 for the North. I'm wondering has his paperwork gone through because he would have been eligible for the European championships in July, although Doolin seemed to favour sticking with the core who gained qualification, as far as I know. Not that his declaration is simple reason to call him up immediately, but he played a few games at championship level last season.
Any how the IFA should not be able to delay it, if they can then the problem is with FIFA allowing the to do it.
To be honest, I can't envisage how they would. I think it's just a case of semi-knowledgeable journalists filling the gaps with vague speculation rather than actually doing a bit of investigation into whether there are rules surrounding such procedures. It would be hard to imagine these procedures were not governed by any legal framework.
Anyway, I've done a bit of investigation myself. As article 8.3 of the Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes states:
Here are the Rules Governing the Procedures of the Players' Status Committee and the Dispute Resolution Chamber: http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/RulesandR...Procedures.pdfQuote:
Any Player who has the right to change Associations in accordance with par. 1 and 2 above shall submit a written, substantiated request to the FIFA general secretariat. The Players' Status Committee shall decide on the request. The procedure will be in accordance with the Rules Governing the Procedures of the Players' Status Committee and the Dispute Resolution Chamber. Once the Player has filed his request, he is not eligible to play for any representative team until his request has been processed.
I'm not sure if that's the current version as it was published in 2008, but article 16.1 does state, "Procedural acts must be conducted within the time limit prescribed by the rules or by the decision-making body." 16.11 states, "Time limits that are to be set by the Players’ Status Committee and the DRC should normally run for no less than ten and no more than twenty days. In urgent cases, time limits may be reduced to 24 hours."
I assume that's relevant to the procedure in question and any current edition would feature similar, or would a player switch be deemed something other than a "procedural act"? It doesn't appear to outline any specific sanction, although I've only had a quick skim through.
Edit: Sorry, the 2010 version, here, which appears to be the most recent: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affe...g2010_efsd.pdf
I think it's more or less the same.
Those are the terms of emancipation as proclaimed by FIFA, but as we have learned from history, what follows are decades of intimidation and suppression. The IFA Klan are prisoners of history.
Heh, Danny don't think it really matters.
Delaying McClean playing for Ireland just strikes me, if it happens, as a stunt by the IFA to 'appease' some of their more vociferous supporters and/or detractors of JMcC.