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Yeah, they left the player out of the first qualifying round due to his suspension and registered him for the Celtic rounds sp that he could play in the 2nd leg. Apparently because they didn't register him for the first qualifying round it didn't count towards his suspension. They didn't register him because they knew he'd miss both legs.
HHe had no impact what so ever on the result. It's very harsh on Warsaw and they should be going through. They didn't just scrape past Celtic, they dominated them over 177 minutes before the banned player completed the remaining 3 minutes of the 180.
It doesn't matter that he didn't affect anything, hardly anyone coming on at 88 minutes would. The point is they used a player that they couldn't use and this is the punishment for it. It's harsh only because someone should have spotted the problem before it happened. How can a manager not know one of his players is suspended? And how can a suspended player be chosen for a match, even as a sub?
From what I've read they thought he'd served 2 games already so was okay for the second leg of the celtic game.
Right, but he hadn't. They thought the last game counted but they didn't register him so it didn't. That makes no sense to me, but it's obviously the way the rule is worked and a football manager should know that. Similarly, FIFA should make it very clear to the club that the player wasn't legal, that his suspension still hadn't been served. I can understand the manager's confusion, although it does sound like a problem that could have been avoided if he'd stayed on top of it. I mostly blame FIFA for not having enough of a presence at the matches to check over the team sheets and raise the red flag before the match instead of after.
You would have thought UEFA would have come up to speed and have an online database of players who can or cannot play. You select the players you want before the game and it throws an error up if anyone is injured, suspended or ineligible. Like on Football Manager. Henning Berg is their manager & I doubt he's had any past managerial experience of the regulations in Europa or Champions League football.
Debrechen did a similar thing four years ago (their player was ineligible but not suspended) and got a £15,000 fine and stayed in the competition. If it was Barcelona or Chelsea who did this, they wouldn't be kicked out because they bring name value to the competition.
Sunderland played a cup game last season with an illegible player and only got a fine. There's been other cases as well, involving European games where the punishment hasn't been as severe as this. It's very, very harsh on them.
I thought I heard this wrong today. Celtic lost 4-1 Away & 2-0 at Home to Legia Warsaw.
But Warsaw fielded an ineligible player, Bartosz Bereszynski for the last 3 minutes of the 2nd leg. UEFA have decided this was far worse than racism & hooliganism which usually gets a fine. And have given Celtic a walkover into the next round. Legia Warsaw have been knocked out of the competition potentially losing £25m in the process.
The misdemeanour should obviously be punished but I can't see it being more than a hefty fine. The player did not change the game or have any effect on the tie's outcome. The Warsaw goals were scored in the 36th & 61st minutes, Bereszynski came on in the 88th minute. If Warsaw took off half of their team, Celtic still wouldn't have been able to score because they're that useless and their new manager is out of his depth.
Last edited by Rossman (Fri-8-Aug-2014 19:46:30)