john@staustell wrote:When I was driving to work this morning and Alan Brazil said Celtic would find out today, I thought that the standard punishment is to award a 3-0 win. Cant accuse UEFA of lacking consistency here - stock standard punishment
Been reading up on this and it's not stock standard punishment. There was a similar incident a few seasons back where near exact same happened but because the team had won both legs convincingly they deemed it only worthy of a fine as the few minutes the player played had no or little consequence.
Also, and although a different association, Sunderland got away with a very similar situation last season but because the didn't gain from it they were only fined and not deducted points. Sunderland went on to win 5 of their last 6 games and if they'd been deducted points for their infringement they would probably have gone down, making the cut by 5 points.
And, haven't Celtic been lucky with this thing before?
As for the infringement, it was a minor technicality from what I can see. The player got a 3 match suspension and actually sat them out. The problem was that Warsaw believed they couldn't register him for a couple of earlier games due to the suspension, and who'd think otherwise. This meant that they didn't count for his ban.
Celtic must've been rubbing their hands when they seen the team sheet and started the proceedings as the game finished. Just look at how fast this has happened?
And me being me, I wouldn't put it past them to exclude both clubs and offer the place to another UK team that aren't currently in any of UEFAs tournaments. Somebody who possibly finished 7th?
;-)