Skip to content

Stevenage to become latest team to receive points deduction?

edited February 2020 in Football

I haven't seen this one before. If found guilty, would it count as failure to fulfil a fixture? All seems to be going wrong at the moment, poor Adam and CMS.

Comments

  • Surely Stevenage when making the application to postpone the game must have identified the names of the players concerned. The EFL should then have the responsibility of verifying that the players met the criteria. In my opinion the cock up (if there is one) should fall entirely on the EFL.

  • edited February 2020

    But you'd think the club would have known which of their players were and weren't eligible, so it probably falls on both parties really.

  • Seems odd. Stevenage seemed to think all three players were eligible and published at the time that they had been called up to play for Afghanistan, Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda in that international break period. EFL approved it, presumably (one would hope) after checking and confirming eligibility.

    Many Stevenage fans are putting Oldham's complaint down to vindictive sour grapes from their former (sacked) manager, Dino Maamria, who now just happens to be coaching at Oldham.

  • So the EFL give Stevenage the go-ahead to call the game off, renege on the decision and want to dock them points.

    Shouldn't really be allowed to call off games due to internationals at this level anyway - you have a game on a certain day - plan your squad accordingly.

  • I wonder if Stevenage will finish the season with more managers than points.

  • edited February 2020

    I've thought quite a bit about the rule since the Ipswich away game got called off, and I think it's fair enough - we could use if Parker, Smyth and Ofoborh got called up, which is possible. League One should arguably take full international breaks the same as the Premier League and Championship, the amount of games which get called off. Postponements for call-ups evidently do happen in League Two, but they're not common enough to necessitate the whole division taking a break.

  • How about clubs that sign players that have already had international call ups, dont count as one of the three players that enables you to call off a game ??

  • What is the ruling on who qualifies as a call up?

    I always thought that the players actually had to have been called up into an international squad during the international break period in question.
    It's surely not just a case of having a player registered who once played an international game?

    All seems very odd to me.

  • It's players who are called up for that round of international fixtures, including youth levels.

  • They could possibly look at bringing in some rule that says a player has to have played xx% of the team's games that season.

    Otherwise it can be a farce when say an Ipswich, can get a game called off because it suits them injuries wise, because they have 3 U21s who have made 2 appearances between them from the bench by December.

  • I'd lean towards no need for this rule at this level. Tends to affect the sides with big squads more. You could see Ipswich were in poor form and had a striker injured and wanted to delay, then it turned out that most of the players called up wouldn't have played anyway.
    Only balance to that is it would be a shame if a player was denied the chance to play for his country due to club pressures.

    Good work though to have pissed off your ex-manager so much that he helps another club to take action against you, whilst you are in the middle of replacing your 4x ex-manager with an ex-player and having to employ another manager as a consultant for him despite having yet another ex-manager on your coaching staff. I'd half expect to see Sam Allardyce behind the bar and Neil Warnock running the turnstiles at their next home game.

  • And Adam El Abd has been kicking his heels for most of the season. Makes a change from kicking other people’s I suppose.

  • What are the odds on El Abd being manager no 5 before the end of the season!

  • Would he adopt a pyramid formation?

  • El Abd as player manager.
    At least he'd get a game that way!

    A truly bonkers let down of a season for him after the last two good years.

Sign In or Register to comment.