Bluebirds Into Europe?

It was always likely to cause something of a shit storm, and now it's likely to get completely out of hand. All of this is happening, as well, whilst the likelihood of it even mattering is still arguably less than fifty per cent. The fact of the matter is that Cardiff City will start the 2008 FA Cup Final as underdogs, but the small issue of whether they should be allowed to enter the UEFA Cup next season is already threatening to completely overshadow the match itself, which conveniently overlooks the fact that they have still got to beat Portsmouth in order for it to become a reality.

To the casual observer, it may seem pretty obvious. The winners of the FA Cup should play in the following season's UEFA Cup. Cardiff City, although Welsh, play within the English league system and enter the English cup competitions, so why should they not be allowed to take what would appear to be an automatic right? The answer, you'll probably be unsurprised to hear, is administration. Although Cardiff City (along with Swansea City, Wrexham, Newport County, Merthyr Tydfil and Colwyn Bay) are fully paid-up members of the English league system, their registration lies with the Football Association of Wales, and UEFA rules state that clubs can only qualify to play in the European competition of their country of affiliation. The decision of the FAW to start (what is now known as) the FAW Premiership in 1992 caused a considerable amount of bad blood within Welsh football. The FAW initially rail-roaded all Welsh non-league clubs into it, but eight of them (the "Irate Eight") opted not to join. The FAW banned them playing in Wales, leading to the ridiculous situation of eight Welsh clubs playing over the border in England until three years later, when a court ruling allowed them back. By this time, five of the clubs had conceded and joined the Welsh league, while the other three plod gamely on, below the Conference.

Against this sort of a background, it's not difficult to see why such a commotion has begun. The Welsh places for the European competitions go to Welsh Premier League sides, but the Welsh sides that play in Europe are left in a theoretical limbo, although it was a limbo that, largely due to their mediocre performances on the pitch, no-one had paid any attention to until now. One suspects that Alun Evans, the chair of the FAW, still harbours the belief that Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham (who were never petitioned to join the Welsh Premiership in 1992) should be members of it rather that members of the English system. He has certainly made public comments about his desire to have their reserve teams play in the Welsh Premier League (including in his recent work of Communist Manifesto-esque importance, 'FAW Strategic Plan 2007-2012') , though it strikes me that this would be pretty demeaning to the league itself.

Over the last couple of weeks, though, a storm has been brewing. First up, UEFA weighed in, with Michel Platini (who is, in theory, a supporter of the smaller clubs in Europe) stated that he hoped that Cardiff would be able to compete in the UEFA Cup next season, and the FA confirmed that they would be happy for them to compete as England's representatives in it should they beat Portsmouth next month. The FA seem to be doing what they can to be accommodating towards Cardiff, having also confirmed (after some complaints about them playing "God Save The Queen") that they would also play "The Land Of My Fathers" before the kick-off at Wembley. The FAW, however, seem to be taking this all as a sleight on their authority as a football association. The FAW is, ultimately, powerless, and the Cardiff chairman Peter Ridsdale has gone public in stating that he will, if required, resign Cardiff from the FAW and register them in England instead.

It seems to me that the FAW's attitude is coming across as small-minded, and Cardiff are right to be concerned - their supporters might not be too bothered about the UEFA Cup, but what if they were to follow this up by getting into the Premier League and (suspend your disbelief for a moment here) qualify for the Champions League? There would be rather more at stake then, and they would have set a precedent which ends their hopes of something that could be very important indeed. A successful run in the UEFA Cup for Cardiff might just, regardless of who is registered to who, ignite a bit of interest in Welsh football, and this could be seen in many different ways, from the national team (and the number of empty seats at many of their recent home matches has been notable) down to the Welsh Premier League, where money is always tight. Frankly, when Alun Evans says this: "But in administrative terms and in terms of the credibility of Welsh football on an international basis then I don't think the argument for their entrance into Europe can be sustained", he's not making very much sense. One gets the feeling, however, that it doesn't really matter very much what he thinks.

Here Is The News!

Sod my favourite ten football shirts. That can wait. Remember what I said about there being no close season any more? Well, it's true. This has been a terrific week for the bizarre and the extraordinary, and it deserves some sort of reporting.

We kick off (or, rather, as we'll see, we don't) at Clarence Park, St Albans, where St Albans City were due to be playing in a pre-season friendly. Before the match, the two managers agreed to throw FIFA's rule limiting teams to six substitutes for friendly matches out of the window. Luton are four divisions above St Albans anyway, and both teams were short of practice. The Saints had been in training for two days, and The Hatters for just a fortnight. It wouldn't do any harm, would it? Wrong. When half-time came, the managers approached the referee and told him of this, and he walked out of the ground, taking the linesmen with him. It looked as if the whole thing would have to be cancelled, but fortunately Luton's press officer is a qualified referee, so he took charge for the second half, with two youth players running the line.

Presumably, Herts County FA (or whomever is responsible for this individual) will have been notified of this. Both sides had agreed on it, the crowd would surely have given more of a damn if the match had been abandoned at half-time than if the two teams had played rolling substitutes for the second half. One would hope that this particular fool's career comes to an end early. I daren't even think what would happen should he take charge of a match with any real responsibility.

Elsewhere, Dietmar Hamann has spurned Bolton for Manchester City, in spite of having technically been a Bolton player for the last three weeks. What this says about the self-aggrandising, be-microphoned Sam Allardyce is open to speculation, and Hamann appears to be too much of a gentleman to say much about it in public apart from to say how much he was impressed by Stuart Pearce, but I think that it's probably fair to say that, as a midfielder, he didn't much fancy the idea of spending a season standing in the middle of the pitch at The Reebok Stadium like a spectator at Wimbledon, as Kevin Nolan hoofs yet another long ball somewhere in the general direction of Kevin Davies. As I've said before, the only saving grace of Steve McLaren becoming the new England coach was that at least it wasn't Allardyce. It appears that I'm not the only person of that opinion.

Finally, Europe. Jurgen Klinsmann and Marcello Lippi (perhaps the only two coaches to emerge from Germany 2006 with their reputations enhanced) have both quit. Two clubs or countries could be set to get very lucky indeed. If Klinsmann is going back to California... Well, USSF! What are you waiting for? On the club front, the Preliminary Round of the Champions League didn't contain anybody that really stood out, but... it's the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup tonight! Such luminaries as Dinamo Bucharest, CSKA Sofia, HJK Helsinki, Brondby, Basle and IFK Gothenberg, therefore, are also included as members of the July Club - fighting to take a place the self-proclaimed "elite" of European football. This, of course, is slightly different to the Intertoto. These clubs have been excluded from the top end of European football because they're not big enough box office. Good luck to them. I hope one of them gives the twelfth best team in Germany/Spain/Italy/England (etcera) a bloody nose at some point.

Summer Lovin'

So... the World Cup is over and done with, and the close season is finally, finally, upon us, right? Well... wrong. Looking through my newspaper yesterday, I noted that the club season, in the form of The Intertoto Cup, had already started. The Champions League also starts tonight. Meanwhile, a cursory glance at many clubs' websites show that the pre-season friendlies start soon - I saw a gaggle of Brighton fans at the railway station on Saturday lunchtime, on their way to Ryman League side Worthing for the day. In other words, there is no close-season period any more.

Of course, we all laugh at the Intertoto Cup. Partly, it's the name: the competition actually came about to satisfy the requirements of the Swiss equivalent of the pools, The Toto, but you can't help put think of "Rosanna" and Judy Garland's pet dog. Partly it's because there is no one winning team. It started in 1961 (Ajax were the first winners, fact fans), but from 1967 to 1994 there were no overall winners at all - just a load of meaningless group stages that didn't go anywhere. Even up to last season, there were three winners every year. This year, there are eleven UEFA Cup places up for grabs. In other words, there are eleven "winners". Mostly though, it's the fact that you know, deep down inside, that the teams involved in it are so desperate for their slice of the UEFA money pie that they're happy to leave themselves open to ridicule in order to enter it, even though they haven't been good enough over the previous season to qualify in the traditional manner.

When UEFA took it over in 1995, it's popularity mushroomed amongst Europe's underachievers. One of the 1995 winners, Girondins de Bordeaux, reached the 1996 UEFA Cup final. Looking back over it's recent history, some surprising names have appeared in it: Juventus, Marseilles, Paris St Germain, Aston Villa and Werder Bremen are amongst recent winners. This year's entrants include Hibernian, Marseille, Newcastle United, Hertha Berlin and Villarreal. Lech Poznan, Dinamo Tbilisi and Lokomotiv Plovdiv (hardly household names, but you've probably at least heard of them) entered and have already been knocked out.

In terms of it's reputation, there's probably not a lot that can be done for the Intertoto Cup. The truth is that what we think of it doesn't really matter. It serves a purpose, of sorts, and it's probably better pre-season practice than whooping seven bells out of a local semi-pro side (Brighton beat Worthing 4-0, in case you were wondering) or playing out some completely meaningless "mini-tournament" for the purposes of satellite TV. I'll keep an eye on it and let you know if anything interesting happens.