CL 2005/2006 - deel 1: de voorronden

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Op woensdag 22 juni 2005 13:31 schreef rubbereend het volgende:

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dat is ook zo, maar nu de regel nu eenmaal anders is moet je niet ineens de boel anders regelen omdat dee bond moeilijk doet, dit is gewoon een streek ten opzichte van Spanje. Ik hoop dat Sociedad dit niet over zich heen laat gaan.

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Champions League Qualification:

UEFA rule 1.03:

England, Spain and Italy by virtue of their Euro points co-efficient shall have 4 spaces in next seasons CL. 2 will gain automatic entry to group stage, with the remaining 2 teams entered into the 3rd qualifying round draw.

National associations decide how these places are distributed
however, if the CL winners fail to achieve this standard they may be entered into next season CL at the expense of team who qualify in the 4th place.

Now, what this in effect says is: UEFA will not create another place for CL winners (I.e. 5th place for top 3 nations), so it is up to the national association to nominate winners in their 4 allocation places.

Winners will then be entered into the group stages as No 1 seed.
The 2nd ranked team (Arsenal in this case) will then be entered into the 3rd qualifying round.

Now, this is where it gets tricky! Last season when the Arse where drawn against chelski in the 1/4 final, the FA in their ultimate wisdom, decided to amend ruling to say that 4th placed team in Premier League (Liverpool in that case) will qualify for a CL place unless another English teams wins the CL but finish outside of top 4 PL places.

This was still in place this season until it became possible that Liverpool may win CL but finish outside top 4. With Everton in 4th place at the time it is rumoured they put pressure on the PL to in turn, put pressure on the FA to rule in their favour. It has to be noted that the PL is far more powerful than the FA and as such recently appointed Reds fan Brian Barwick was forced to take the matter to FA panel.

At this panel meeting, Barwick abstained due to a conflict of interest as did Gartside (Bolton) who were also in the running for 4th place. This left David Dein (Arsenal) as the major voice on the panel. Not surprisingly, Dein et al voted for top 4 PL places to be nominated for next seasons CL. Surely this was also a ‘conflict of interest’ as Arsenal stood to be removed from the automatic group qualifying stage and entered into the 3rd qualifying stage with Liverpool taking their place.

UEFA now had a big problem on their hands, they tried to pressure FA to include Liverpool as there 4th nominated team but the FA stood firm, thanks to Dein.
Excuse me if I sound a little bitter here, but is it just me who thinks we have been royally screwed up the derriere?! UEFA are partly to blame for wording article 1.03 ‘winners may be nominated’ but they didn’t in their wildest dream expect a national association to nominate a 4th place team in place of CL winners!

Barwick had his hands tied by the FA panel, so only had one course of action left: to lobby for a 5th CL place. This is a disgraceful state of affairs with the CL winners now forced to compete in the 1st qualifying round (12 July!!) and also without any ‘country status’ which means we can be paired with Everton in 3rd round or chelski in group stage! UEFA could have placed Liverpool directly into the group stage at the expense of Fenerbache who in any other situation would have been entered into the 3rd round draw, but didn’t want it to seem to other European nations that the FA had bullied them into a 5th CL place for England.

We have become the unwitting pawns in a huge game of political chess where one side ‘ the FA’ instigated by David Dein, has for purely selfish reasons, decided to put immense pressure on UEFA so that his team are not in effect penalised. UEFA have now realised their ‘wording mistake’ and altered 1.03 to this affect., although it must be pointed out, in both Spain and Italy the rules were always in favour the CL winning team over league position, funny that!

Everton: Finishing 4th was a HUGE achievement for you and I congratulate you for it, however, 5th was a HUGE disappointment for us Reds even with ‘Ole Big ears‘ won back for keeps! I know you won’t admit it, but it is you who are ‘lucky’ to qualify not us, I suggest X-mas cards aplenty to Mr. Dein this year!