WELL DONE to Michael O’Neill and the IFA for issuing The Rangers forward Kyle Lafferty with a five-day ban from football after he failed to join up with the national team ahead of crucial fixtures in the UEFA Nations League.
In layman terms, Kyle Lafferty ‘phoned in sick’ to his shift with work but was seen at pub that night and as a result is in the dog house. Rangers had even said he was fit so either they are lying or more likely it is Lafferty who was at it as usual.
This kind of retrospective action will no doubt be a power play at the IFA to emphasise to the players how important representing their international team is; however, what they could have done is opened the floodgates for a potential increase in cases of this nature.
IFA confirm they have written to Rangers regarding Kyle Lafferty pic.twitter.com/dXf2KgbNvY
— Ruth Gorman (@RuthGorman_UTV) October 17, 2018
Lombardi Associates, a specialist firm in Sports Law, highlighted how the IFA have used the rule to punish Lafferty for declining to join up with the national team, hours before he was due to. Incidentally, the so called Northern Ireland were defeated 1-0 in Austria and then 2-0 in Bosnia, both narrow margins and Michael O’Neill is no doubt furious at Lafferty’s disregard for the squad. There were some hilarious sitters missed by O’Neill’s side which clearly lacked a goalscorer in these games – thus the anger at Lafferty.
Annex 1 of FIFA RSTP states that a player who has been called up by his association is, unless otherwise agreed, not entitled to play for his club during the period in which he would have been playing for the national team, plus additional period of 5 days https://t.co/gENWJ3wE7M
— Lombardi Associates (@LombardiAssocs) October 17, 2018
Should Rangers chose not to comply with the IFA’s invoking of Annex 1 FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP), they can fall foul of FIFA Disciplinary Committee Article 6, which states failure to comply with a ban can result in a fine or the match in question being forfeited. Not that they usually face any consequences to cheating, bending or breaking rules but in this instance it wouldn’t be the SFA who would be there to enforce the rules – no laughing at the back – it would be FIFA.
Do you know that word association game you see on the telly? Most folk when hearing Lafferty would respond by saying a) Goalscorer b) footballer or c) cheat…we all know the answer.
If you cheat your own country does that make you a traitor?…d) traitor.
