New Zealand U-23s - Quali Whites

Fair enough - neither of us has any facts on that - just what we've seen ourselves. 

If the FFA could go through the process and get exemptions for Ibini and Mabil, why couldn't NZF do the same?

I think it would actually be a fascinating study - it would be interesting to know what sort of factors are the strongest motivators in this respect.

We'll never know now but like I said Vanuatu played it the way they did to get round losing on the field. 

Yea, but they probably got eligibility clearances from FIFA (e.g. Bernie Ibini). 

I know there are a lot of people on this forum going through the cycle of grief, each at different stages, but the sooner we all get to 'acceptance' the better.

Yes it certainly would, especially if it looked at the evolving nature of those factors. For example taking into account the effects of more affordable air travel and instant communications which means moving to a new home on the other side of the world isn't perhaps as much of a one-way physical, social and cultural trip as it used to be. :-)  

In Australia they'd have to get potentially hundreds to thousands of clearances from FIFA if they were going to make provision for all the kids who might be good enough to be considered for selection to high level squads of 'possibles' at various age-group stages - otherwise how could those kids ever be considered? I am not getting the impression that this is what anyone has done. 

Think you may find if this goes badly it may be some time  before we get that acceptance you talk of.

Realistically, you're never going to have more than 40-50 internationals across all national teams at any given time. And you're not going to seek an exemption unless the player in question is clearly making that cut.

I still don't think it's really all that problematic.

You do realise that it's just the cream that rises to the crop that you need to check eligibility on, right?

I'm pretty sure the FFA aren't checking the eligibility of Pok Namsok of Coogee United's 3rd team.

At age group level there could very well be some of this going on around the world espeacially in friendlies, but if you send a team to the world cup (or olympics) or world cup (or olympics) qualifying as we have done you would want to double and tripple check every single factor including eligibility.

The rules are unfair, but rules are rules and we have broken them. Repeatedly.

I only hope FIFA is lenient on us, and accept something like the management team falling on their swords as punishment enough, because its really the players which suffer from their higher ups incompetence. It's not just the memories and experience, its potentially careers which are made at these tournaments.

Anyway, even if they didn't there's a hell of a lot riding on this. Look at it from Vanuatu's perspective - if you thought your opponents were trying to get away with cheating then why would you care about acting in good faith with them? Why should you care? Play the game, and if you win then you can challenge NZ in the WC Qualifiers if they're still fielding ineligible players. If you lose then you can challenge it there and then and keep a chance of going to the Olympics.

I know NZF are trying to paint this as all a big misunderstanding and it may well be that, but from the outside it could well look like we were knowingly trying to get away with cheating. NZF might have been knowingly been trying to get away with cheating for all we know.

We made our bed, now we have to lie in it. This whole shambles is the fault of no one but NZF.

Maybe the player was going to the NTC without realising he wasnt eligible?

Australia is a largely "immigrant" nation and did make representation to FIFA about eligibility issues. FIFA basically told them to get lost and stick to the rules like everyone else. This is why Australia has a history of seeking clearance for players with no blood links to the country.

NZ is in the same boat. I read somewhere that in Auckland one third of its citizens were born overseas and that close to 50% of people under the age of 25 were born overseas. Not sure how accurate that is but whatever the stats a significant number of kids playing football in NZ do not have blood links to NZ that would make them automatically eligible to play for NZ. This is a massive issue for NZ football. No doubt they have learnt their lesson but its a hard and very costly way to learn.

I'm on Gordinho's side. I think that Vanuatu's protest was unsporting. Call me old fashion but I would rather sporting contests were sorted out on the field rather than in courts. Yes NZ did bad and was in the wrong but I don't believe that Vanuatu found out that we had ineligible players after kickoff. They had a typed out protest that included both Wynne's and our striker names(can't remember who it was) even though he was not playing. It was a premeditated act to take NZ out of the tournament. NZ were super dumb to leave themselves exposed but Vanuatu could have protested earlier and Wynne would have been out of the tournament and the matches would have been sorted on the field.

If NZ had done this to Vanuatu I think the general feeling in NZ would be that, this is not the way we do things. Are we heading to the stage that teams hire investigating lawyers to check out other teams during tournaments to try and win on a technicality?. I'll bet if you checked out every age group player from every country in Oceania you would find some fairly dodgy birth certificates. 

But fielding ineligible players is also not the way we do things.

Who cares about Vanuatu, they are tangental, the point is NZF.

If NZ had done this to Vanuatu or anyone else I'd be furious and embarrassed as a New Zealand supporter and I'm sure many others would have been as well. I'm not one of those 'win-at-all-costs types' though. Maybe a bit old-fashioned as well I guess. 

Yeah of course I get that - thats why I said - to quote myself - "all the kids who might be good enough to be considered for selection to high level squads of 'possibles' at various age-group stage"  - that can be a lot of kids across the different age-groups etc

So when do you take the exemption application to FIFA? Leaving it till we're talking about final team selections is a little bit late don't you think? Surely lacking 'eligibility' would mean these new kiwi kids would already have been be disadvantaged in consideration of final team picks, or wider squad picks, or trials starting from when they were 14 or 15.etc. There would always be that uncertainty hanging over them - at least on the basis of what seems to be FIFA's process at the moment. 

To be fair to everyone you'd need to be able to sort this out as early as possible for promising players so there was nothing except opportunity holding them back. Here's a thought - how about FIFA waives the requirement for kids aged under 15 when they got citizenship  - that should cut out any of the real 'talent-harvest' concerns. That would reduce the load of exemption applications to those cases in the 15+ age-groups where there dodgy stuff may mostly occur. They need to do something as its blatantly unfair on innocent parties.

Exactly my point!

WTF?

So if another team had cheated, and we had protested, you'd be furious and embarrassed?

So, you think if another country fields ineligible players we should just say "That's okay, don't worry about it"?

So, you think if, for example, Micronesia hired the full Brazillian team to play for them, that we should just say "Yeah, wish we'd thought of doing that. Well done Micronesia. Yeah, we know there is a rule forbidding this, but it would be bad form to complain, so we'll just suck it up. You go on ahead..."

You cannot be serious? Surely?

Ancient Vanuatu proverb:

Teams who field ineligible players shouldn't whine about when the protest against them was lodged.

Every cloud has a silver lining, every glass is half full. Here's 10 reasons why it won't be so bad if FIFA ban NZ for 2 years

1, Tommy Smith will be very happy

2, NZF will get their house in order and  will never have any cockups in the future(yeah, right!!!)

3, Vanuatu or Fiji will represent our noble Confederation at the Olympics and Confed Cup and WC playoff against the likes of Cavani and Sanchez's Uruguay and will suffer poundings of Micronesial  proportions that  will make FIFA question the viabilty of Oceania

4, We won't have anything to do with Oceania for 2 years

5, Young kiwis like Tuiloma, Thomas and Boyd will be able to establish their pro careers in Europe without the interuption of flying around the globe playing for NZ

6, There is no 6

7, the money saved on FIFA tournaments can be ploughed back into NZ grassroots football

8, Some people in NZF will get the sack

9, NZ fans will be spared the joy of watching the AW's play world football powerhouses Vanuatu, Solomons etc on jumpy internet streams

10, Hudson will have more time to walk his dog

One interesting point if we had qualified for Rio:

I doubt we would get any of our top over-age players from the UK or Europe released for this particular Olympics because of the scheduling.

Same will apply for the other teams of course.

The Rio men's football tournament is scheduled for August 4 to August 20.

Exactly when UK and European leagues are likey to be commencing their new seasons.

It seems unlikely to me that any clubs would release the likes of Winston Reid, Chris Wood, Marco Rojas, Tommy Smith etc.

FIFA does not require that clubs must release over-age players, only the u-23 players.

The Oly-Whites would be looking at A-League players (who wouldn't be sharp as they'd be in pre-season) or South African-based players  for example to fill the over-age slots (although the South African league kicks off exactly at that time in August too).

We managed to get Ryan Nelsen in 2012 - perhaps because the Olympic football was played before the Premier League kicked off that season. (The other two over-age players were Smeltz and McGlinchey). The Olympic football ran 26 July - 11 August in 2012.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics Ryan Nelsen cut a deal with Blackburn that he could play in NZ's first two group games before boarding a flight back to Britain. He missed the third game against Belgium on 13/8/08 - and he was the captain. Clubs just aren't that keen to release players. 

My guess is that Tommy Smith would bite your arm off to play at the Olympics rather than sitting on the bench for a few games at the start of the League One season.

;-)

Look. The law is an arse but it is the law.

Just because a law is stupid is no reason to ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply to you as we have.

You can make all the points in the world about it Gordy but it doesn't change the black and white of it. Those are the laws we are obliged to abide by them.

As an edit: I don't buy this 'the law is the law ' stuff either. If it was, we would have no lawyers, no judicial system, no common law, and no changes to the law because the original one was wrong.

I can hear the chants coming from across The Tasman  "Same Old Kiwis Always Cheating"

Get used to it because the Phoenix  will be subjected to it in the coming A League season

should try and get San Marino interested, they are next to play England at the beginning of September.  I am sure they'd love a 3-0 win and 3 points.

I think it's NZs only chance. 

Studying all the gun football nations squads on Wikipedia and trying to find as many gun players as possible. Then lobbing those bombshells to FIFA.

Unfortunately we may find if we do our research that other countries were not as dumb as us.

We can only hope however.

I think you are on to something. Given the likely ban coming up, I think NZF needs to look at an international programme against non-FIFA 'national' teams. e.g. Kosovo (could get Adnan Januzaj signing up), Vatican City (I hear the Pope is a fan) and Catalonia. Hell, we could might even be able to get a scratch 'United Kingdom' team to give us a run for our money.

So what would then stop, let's say, Qatar from shipping over 2,000 14-year old Brazilian boys, giving them all citizenship - if only 1% work out as good footballers, Qatar have an instant competitive team. And they can then just press repeat on that.

A lot of people are looking at this from a very insular perspective - in the grand scheme of things, Wynne is just collateral damage in FIFA's fight to preserve competitive integrity of international football. And they recognise that there are occasional issues with the rule, so they give exemptions to players who demonstrate they're not cheating the system. And if NZF had bothered to do something about that - like the FFA have been doing - none of this would have come to pass. So who's at fault then?

This almost seems worth doing. Would be hilarious if it turns out he is actually ineligible.

I can't believe you are citing Arthur Allan Thomas, a case where police planted evidence. There is no way that Vanuatu planted Deklan Wynne in the NZ team to get us sent down. 

I think you need to have a lie down.

Nope.. Highlights an example where the simple process of sending a fax requesting an exemption should have been applied for and would likely almost certainly have been granted.

Its not following the rules that is stupid...

Very reliable sauces say they did plus if they knew about de Vries and followed the rules.  They knew.

Calm down a bit. 

I would want NZ to protest in advance as soon as they had the info. That might allow time for more positive resolution of the situation.  I would be furious and embarrassed if we did what I believe Vanuatu did - which was to sit on it and save it only to be used in ambush if they lost on the field. There's a difference between those two responses to seeing something illegal - I hope you get the difference. 

Do note that I'm not apologising for NZFs wrongs in this - whatever they turn out to be. I'm commenting on what I think of Vanuatu did. If you're OK with how they did what they did then that is fine for you - I just happen to think it wasn't the best. I guess doing the right thing doesn't matter to everyone the same way - and no I'm still not absolving NZF either. But however NZF stuffed up that doesn't excuse Vanuatu's action as far as I am concerned. Thats my opinion and others can differ of course.