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Fat Sam in todays mail,
Fonte ruling compounds Tevez mess Rui Fonte, a 19-year-old striker formerly with Arsenal, went on loan to Crystal Palace last season and played his final game on May 3 against Sheffield United as a 55th-minute substitute.
Unfortunately, his loan had ended before then, meaning Fonte (below) was ineligible. The game ended in a draw. Even had Sheffield United won, the extra two points would have made no difference to their final league position - third - while Palace had nothing to play for on the last day. So, no big deal.
That is clearly what the Football League thought, too, because last week they docked Palace the one point gained from the match, awarded nothing extra to Sheffield United and left the Championship table unchanged (Crystal Palace still finished 15th, but on goal difference from Blackpool, rather than by a point).
The decision slipped under the radar, which was no doubt intended, aside from the odd jibe about another campaign for fairness from Sheffield United, and the irony of noted guardian of morality on player registration issues, Neil Warnock, the manager of Crystal Palace, getting caught pulling a fast one.
Yet the Fonte decision is hugely significant because the next time a team puts a player on the pitch who should not be there, it could change the whole complexion of the League (as it might have done that day had Birmingham City failed to beat Reading and Sheffield United not taken advantage) and then where would we be?
In this instance, it was the duty of the Football League to do what was right and award the game, and the points, to Sheffield. They would then have established a precedent for what happens in these circumstances, and football would not be vulnerable to another Lord Griffiths ruling, in which a gentleman plays hypothetical matches in his head and then tells us what the scores would have been.
Football has got to try to overcome the foolish inconsistencies of the Carlos Tevez case, otherwise it will spend more time in the law courts than some of the ushers.
It is impossible to assess how many points Tevez was worth to West Ham United but, if he was ineligible to play, like Fonte, every game in which he featured should have been awarded to the other team.
Nobody was prepared to take this drastic action at the time and so the issue dragged on until Lord Griffiths presented a flawed ruling based on poor logic and guesswork.
The Football League had the chance to introduce reason to the process last week by establishing a black and white principle on ineligible players. If one plays, you lose.
Potentially, on the last day of the season, football was a Reading equaliser away from another lengthy legal narrative. With its lazy devotion to a quiet life, it is as if the game is looking for trouble
Fonte ruling compounds Tevez mess Rui Fonte, a 19-year-old striker formerly with Arsenal, went on loan to Crystal Palace last season and played his final game on May 3 against Sheffield United as a 55th-minute substitute.
Unfortunately, his loan had ended before then, meaning Fonte (below) was ineligible. The game ended in a draw. Even had Sheffield United won, the extra two points would have made no difference to their final league position - third - while Palace had nothing to play for on the last day. So, no big deal.
That is clearly what the Football League thought, too, because last week they docked Palace the one point gained from the match, awarded nothing extra to Sheffield United and left the Championship table unchanged (Crystal Palace still finished 15th, but on goal difference from Blackpool, rather than by a point).
The decision slipped under the radar, which was no doubt intended, aside from the odd jibe about another campaign for fairness from Sheffield United, and the irony of noted guardian of morality on player registration issues, Neil Warnock, the manager of Crystal Palace, getting caught pulling a fast one.
Yet the Fonte decision is hugely significant because the next time a team puts a player on the pitch who should not be there, it could change the whole complexion of the League (as it might have done that day had Birmingham City failed to beat Reading and Sheffield United not taken advantage) and then where would we be?
In this instance, it was the duty of the Football League to do what was right and award the game, and the points, to Sheffield. They would then have established a precedent for what happens in these circumstances, and football would not be vulnerable to another Lord Griffiths ruling, in which a gentleman plays hypothetical matches in his head and then tells us what the scores would have been.
Football has got to try to overcome the foolish inconsistencies of the Carlos Tevez case, otherwise it will spend more time in the law courts than some of the ushers.
It is impossible to assess how many points Tevez was worth to West Ham United but, if he was ineligible to play, like Fonte, every game in which he featured should have been awarded to the other team.
Nobody was prepared to take this drastic action at the time and so the issue dragged on until Lord Griffiths presented a flawed ruling based on poor logic and guesswork.
The Football League had the chance to introduce reason to the process last week by establishing a black and white principle on ineligible players. If one plays, you lose.
Potentially, on the last day of the season, football was a Reading equaliser away from another lengthy legal narrative. With its lazy devotion to a quiet life, it is as if the game is looking for trouble
