We're back

[BustaGut]

I assume when signing a player, they must and are suppose to check everything about them, including if they have two legs etc, but somehow even that seems to go wrong in some cases

[jc]

Originally Posted By: David Holden

Quote:

If a club knowingly fielded a player who was cup-tied, that would always be blatant cheating. But a club will often have nothing to gain by knowingly fielding a player without international clearance, unless they wanted to play him in a specific match before the international clearance process could be completed and did so anyway.

Until they get the international clearance they don't know whether he was eligible to play.

That's the whole point of the clearance system, for all they knew, the Welsh FA had just handed out a 12 match ban which would have made him ineligible.

So whilst they may not have fielded a player knowing that he was ineligble, they did field a player without knowing that he was eligble. In my book that's the same thing.

A fair point - that is indeed another case where a club could gain an unfair advantage by fielding a player without international clearance.

Unwittingly fielding ineligible players isn't as blatant a form of cheating as doing it deliberately, but as you rightly say, it's their own fault for not checking properly.