I'd love to give you all the reason's you're wrong, but they've been done to death in the second section of the case of Jean-Marc Bosman, whereby a player's main duty of, well, playing, was set in stone as the defining factor regarding the eligibility of European Union nationals in European Union nations. UEFA themselves would have argued the same flawed logic as yourself, impressing that nothing was stopping the clubs from employing the players to train, but were met with the undeniable truth that training in football is essentially the same as training in any job - the means to an end, with a lack of training being not a breach of terms of employment but a lack of suitability to work - that is, to play.
We don't know. It appears our club does not either - at least not those before the mouthpiece. At first it appeared to be the case that the differentiating factor was the seasonal differences between the UK leagues and Ireland (which seemed at first to be the very reason they were more entitled to play - given that this was the explanation given for the Mascherano leniency).Its weird that FIFA have not cleared both of them and raises questions as to why the appeal was different to the other players, but Cork have declined to enlighten us all as to these reasons. All we have is fans, understandably, screaming for them to be allowed play and giving out about miscarriages of justice, but let me ask again.
Why was their appeal different to the other 10?
Now it appears that it is somehow a disadvantage.
Another issue surrounding our players that has subsequently arisen is the short-term loan deals involving other clubs, eg Brentford and Bradford. These deals should not have gone through, given the 6 month lower limit on loan deals, and the English FA is at fault for this.
In the past Cork City have been impacted by this relatively new rule, during the crisis of availability of a goalkeeper for the European campaign of 2005, Birmingham's Colin Doyle having agreed to join City but being refused clearance because the deal was too short, and Birmingham's reluctance to lose a player for 6 months. That particular ruling came under fire because it involved a goalkeeper, a situation that has been subject to leniency many times, famously including Jimmy Glass, the goalkeeper that scored to keep Carlisle (open to correction here) in the football league, on a short term loan.
That again we are faced with a situation where loopholes, vagaries and leniency are the issues, one has to wish for a little consistency one way or the other from the governing bodies.
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