I wonder if anyone in NZ Football Federation is interested in a plan B in case of defeat.
It involves to submit a protest to FIFA first thing after the game for allowing an inelegible player, Christian Gimenez, to play for Mexico in the last four games of Concacaf clasification tournament (Panama being one of the rivals).
Gimenez played in 2001 a Conmebol official U20 competition that awarded berths to the World Cup of such category in that year. FIFA statutes say that any player that played an official match, becomes inelegible for another association, unless it has others nationalities before such match, a requirement that Gimenez DID NOT comply with.
FIFA most likely would try to dismiss it. But, alas, in the same statutes it recognize the CAS as a last instance to settle disputes, when all other options in FIFA are closed. The point is to force FIFA to issue a decision, or have at least enough proof of delayed justice to be able to file an appeal to Court of Arbitration for Sport
The matter of the dispute is if FIFA gave an improper clearence to Gimenez. Something important, because fielding an ineligible player is punished with a forfeit 0-3. Such result would change the playoff rival, Panama in this case.
if there is an opportunity, ¿why not to take it? At the very least, some monetary compensation could be obtained if CAS rule that FIFA did not enforce its own statutes.
Unfortunately Panama have already protested (although they left it too late I think - outside the 24 hours window after a match for protesting)
The problem is that he played for an Argentina team appearing as "a guest" in the u-20 qualifiers since they were hosting the Finals.
But it seems a very messy area - were the Argentina team's matches "official" or not? How can matches in a qualifying tournament not be official when the results are official even if one team is only a "guest" and doesn't need to qualify?
Mexico plays at the Copa America and the matches count as friendlies for us (when it comes to the Fifa rankings), so it has been that way long ago.
Panama made an enquiry, not a protest, after the fact surfaced in social media. The answer by FIFA was just to acknowledge they received the enquiry about the elegibility of Gimenez and that they refuse to comment (neither "no" or "yes") using as excuse art. 14, par.3. (time limit of 1 hour to protest).
But NZ is an affected third party,as such not bounded by the time limit (this is applied only to the teams involved in the match in question) and as such it can still demand FIFA to launch disciplinary measures against Mexico regarding Gimenez participation in the game against Panama, as the outcome of a forfeit, as FIFA regulations mandate in case of inelegible player, is a different playoff rival.
I know FIFA would try to avoid it, But NZ can appeal to CAS, in order to clarify the matter of the nature of Argentina participation in South America U-20 tournament in Ecuador 2001. In regulations of similar tournaments declares in art.1 that CONMEBOL organizes the tournament in behalf of FIFA, and art. 2 say participants are the 10 federations of CONMEBOL. For me that means every match in the tournament is official.
Regarding the participation of Mexico in Copa America and Brazil in Gold Cup, they are guests of a DIFFERENT confederation of the one organizing the. tournament. This is NOT the case of Argentina.
This matter has to come an impartial court to decide. Let CAS sort it out.
And if the ruling comes too late, at least make FIFA pay compensation to both NZ and Panama for the damage incurred by its "oversight"
So, is up to the NZ football community if they want to lose this opportunity and allow FIFA to keep a double standard.
Sorry to repeat, I did not quote properly in the first one