2009 Manchester United Premier Cup (Nike Cup)

2009 Manchester United Premier Cup (Nike Cup)

Elegibility email from Capital Football:

Hello All,

Again this year Nike in conjunction with NZ Football is holding the MUPC (Nike Cup).  The Wellington �finals� will be held at Petone on Sunday 15th March.  This will include semi finals and the final.  Entry numbers will determine if we will require another day for quarter finals or other play off games. If your club wishes to enter a team in this competition can you please indicate this to me no later than Friday 27th February. 
The team that wins the Wgtn finals will represent Capital Football in Auckland with five other teams competing for the right to represent New Zealand at the next stage of the competition, in Australia.  It is the responsibility of the Wgtn team to make its own travel and accommodation arrangements for the Auckland tournament.  The costs of the Australia tournament and the MUPC finals are covered by the sponsors.

Below in red are the eligibility rules for this tournament.  We have cleared this with NZF and Nike.  We are keeping these rules low-key as they represent a special exemption for Capital Football (given the changes in our club/college arrangements this year), and have not been extended to other Federations. 
The statement in blue is from Andy Hedge, Director of Football, in regards to the issues concerning potential clashes between Nike Cup and Federation Academy.

�The Nike Cup is open to teams of players based on which Club they will be playing for in the coming season.�Club" has included Wellington College in recent years, by agreement with NZF. This year throws up new issues for Capital Football teams in terms of eligibility. Given our move to College-based football from the 15th grade up if we followed those rules to the letter we wouldn't have anywhere near enough College/15th grade teams ready to field teams by mid-March and therefore form a regional competition, certainly not in this transitional year anyway. We have therefore agreed with NZF that, for this year at least, Capital Football teams may be based on players' 2008 Club teams.

If a College is ready, able and willing to field a team in this year's Nike Cup - great, that's how the eligibility rules are drafted. If the player is going to play his 2009 Saturday football for that College, then he may play in the Nike Cup for that College. 

If, on the other hand, and as will be more common, a College is not ready to put out a 15th grade team in mid-March then a player may play in this year's Nike Cup for his 2008 Club team. Either way the MUPC rules state that a player must be registered with his club (/college) by 1st March 2009.

All of the above assumes a player is a "true" 15th grade player this year and, therefore, will be playing for a College-based team. To clarify the position of a, say, 14th grade player who is good enough to play up a grade in the Nike Cup, and who could still be playing for a Club team in 2009 in the 14th grade JPL for example, the relevant criteria will be the Club that the player will play his Saturday football for this year. If a 14th grade player is moving from Club A in 2008 to Club B in 2009 then he is eligible to play for Club B in the Nike Cup�.

The eligibility criteria for this tournament have created a fair bit of angst in the last couple of years, and this year is more complicated again. Can we ask everyone please to respect the sprit of the competition, and why the rules are there i.e. to avoid "super teams" being put together for the purpose of winning a single tournament.
Smithy2009-02-04 10:28:39

Capital Football Clusterf**k.

Do you not consider Manchester United and Barcelona to be "super teams".

Indeed.  I think the Central United side that has won the Oceania group for the last couple of years have been a bit of a super team.  Last year Stop Out had a great side - many of whom went on and played Central League for them - and didn't quite make it through.  They were arguably a super team. 

http://www.footballnsw.com.au/index.php?id=88  

Smithy2009-02-19 16:21:40

Other games this weekend...

 

yeeah simon and guy. Keen to see danny get owned aye haha

Nick you're not wanted here.

Ha... I heard from him about 1:30 this morning and he was totally Feverished.

Upper Hutt beat Lower Hutt 2-1 today in a fairly even affair.

St Pats Town got smashed 8-1 by Wests (that's Wests U14s too, so a year below).

Marconi won the NSW final last night 1-0.

In other build up games, Wests U14/15 combo smashed Petone (ouch) 5-2 at the weekend.

All games are tonight at Memorial.

Not that anyone's showing this much love, but for those who are interested Petone, Wellington College, Lower Hutt and St Pat's Town are the teams through.

Petone 2 - 1 Porirua AET
Wellington College 3 - 0 Upper Hutt (I think)
Onslow 0 - 2 Lower Hutt (I think)
St Pats 0 - 0 Western Suburbs 4-3 on pens AET (might have the pen count wrong).

Awful conditions in a strong northerly.  Fingers crossed for better weather Sunday.

Wests 

How did the semis and finals go in the weekend

Petone won, despite a rubbish coach, think they beat Lower Hutt in the final ? 

Hutt maybe beating Coll and Petone beating 'stream in the semi's ?

Correct Hard News.

Petone won 1-0 in the final after beating St Pat's Town earlier in the day.

Lower Hutt knocked out Wellington College in the other game of the day.

The other decided representative so far is Nomads 15s from Christchurch, coached by Danny Halligan.

It looks like its getting harder smithy

And Nomads from Christchurch is essentially their Mainland Federation team. Hard News2009-03-24 10:51:49

I thought the rules said something about no Rep teams ?

How are you paying for this trip Smiff?

Petone, proudly sponsored by Yellow Fever.

bigger font please

Fixed the draw (but bollocksed the formatting).

notice no mention of the Petone coach haha

How come our local teams coach wasnt mentioned in that report and the others were?