Midtjylland ineligible player talk vs Celtic shut down by UEFA

Add as preferred source on Google

UEFA have cleared up the confusion surrounding the Midtjylland ineligible player talk vs Celtic.

Midtjylland released a statement before the PSV Eindhoven game stating why their player Juninho couldn’t feature. This was due to a ban picked up during his time in Brazil for eight matches – one that was deemed a worldwide ban.

That raised question marks over whether the player, who played 113 minutes against Celtic, was actually ineligible to feature. If so, going by UEFA rules, Celtic would’ve been awarded a 3-0 win.

However, the governing body have come out and cleared the situation up.

As quoted by the Scottish Sun, UEFA said: “With regard to your inquiry, we would, first of all, like to inform you that in accordance with Article 66 of the Fifa Disciplinary Code (2019 edition), any decision related to the extension of sanctions to have worldwide effect falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent Fifa disciplinary bodies.

“We can confirm that Uefa was made aware by Fifa on 2 August of its decision taken on the same day regarding this case, i.e. after the Uefa Champions League second qualifying round tie between FC Midtjylland and Celtic FC.”

Midtjylland get away with one vs Celtic

The Danes look to have gotten away with one here. UEFA have more or less said because both they and Midtjylland didn’t know about the ban, everything is fine.

In fairness, it’s probably the fairest route to go down. Throwing Midtjylland out of the competition would’ve been extremely harsh. Then again, you would expect them to have done their homework on their player’s availability.

They will have known that he suffered a lengthy ban in Brazil. You can’t sign a player and not know information like that. It should’ve been down to Midtjylland to get the appropriate info on whether he could feature.

In any case, we can see how cheeky it is to even look for holes in this. We were soundly beaten and didn’t deserve to qualify for the next round. The Celtic board certainly don’t deserve the let-off either.

But it looks as though UEFA are happy to give Midtjylland the benefit of the doubt here.

In other news, Report: Conor Hazard could be next out the Celtic exit door