How we've misconducted ourselves in the past is surely irrelevant.the pink palermo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:35 am I'm sorry you read it that way, but we have been punished for fielding ineligiable players before, and massively hurt by 3rd party breaches.
I'm merely pointing out this isn't us.Or at least, I don't think it is.
As for the players, of course it is a disappoinment, their chance to play one of the best clubs in the world, gone, but this is professional football, if we turn up a day late for the reverse fixture, UEFA would kick us out.
And the players in question don't lose the chance to play us, per se, they lose the chance to come to London. They will be rested and revved up to go for the return leg, possibly to our detriment, even given that you're right and we have no control over the visas.
I am not however all that bothered about 'who is to blame', I just don't think this situation is sustainable in the long-term, if there is no emergency route in terms of the visas. It cannot be the case that each possible destination has to have preliminary requests for visas lodged with it, simply to cover every base, in every round of a competition. English clubs feature prominently in 3 such competitions and nearly all teams have non_EU players.