Browse > Home / Champions League, Players / UEFA Ruling Means Fletcher Will Miss The Final

UEFA Ruling Means Fletcher Will Miss The Final

11 May 09 by Bill

After a specially convened meeting, UEFA have insisted “there were no grounds” to contest the decision of Italian referee, Roberto Rosetti following Darren Fletcher’s sending off against Arsenal. So that’s that, Fletcher will miss the final.

The meeting of UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary body was arranged to discuss the validity of Manchester United’s protests that Darren Fletcher should not have been sent off and should therefore not miss the final.

UEFA rules state the only basis for an appeal against a refereeing decision is if it were a case of mistaken identity so for UEFA to arrange a special meeting to conclude there is no basis for appeal does nothing more than show what a farce the system is. There was simply no other possible outcome so why have meeting in the first place?

Alex Ferguson never expected any other outcome but felt obliged to protest given Fletcher’s hard work and honest attitude. United have accepted UEFA’s ruling though and the case is now closed.

A United spokesman said: “Darren is an honest player and we felt we should do what we could to try to help him become eligible for the Champions League final by initially protesting his dismissal. However, we respect Uefa’s decision not to admit the protest and we will therefore not be appealing against today’s ruling.”

The real problem for UEFA is the can of worms the case would open should they choose to step in and make an exception. At the meeting, they also discussed impending suspensions in the Barcelona camp. Neither of which would have been contested had it not been for the Fletcher situation. Barcelona figured if UEFA did it for United, they’d have to do it for them and fair play to them; any team would have tried it.

On the positive side, both of Barcelona’s protests were also rejected so they will be missing both their first choice full-backs when we meet in Rome.

I had been hopeful of a positive outcome from this meeting. I was convinced UEFA would watch the video replays and see how unfair it was for Fletcher to miss the final. Perhaps that’s giving UEFA too much credit.

2 Comments already, join the discussion

Posted in Champions League, Players · Tagged , , , ,
Digg this  Add Bookmark to Delicious  Stumble This  Post to Facebook  Reddit    Submit to Punditit   

Discussion, what's your opinion?

2 people have said their bit on “UEFA Ruling Means Fletcher Will Miss The Final”

    Amazing Article , I thought it was marvelous

    I look ahead to more great postings like this one. Does your website have a subscription I can subscribe to for new posts?

    ReplyReply
    reoxepeanda on November 23rd, 2009 8:50 pm

    [... - http://www.blogunited.co.uk is other wonderful website of information. Car insurance claims [… -

    ' + author + '<\/a>: '; var myField; if (document.getElementById('comment') && document.getElementById('comment').type == 'textarea') { myField = document.getElementById('comment'); } else { return false; } if (document.selection) { myField.focus(); sel = document.selection.createRange(); sel.text = inReplyTo; myField.focus(); } else if (myField.selectionStart || myField.selectionStart == '0') { var startPos = myField.selectionStart; var endPos = myField.selectionEnd; var cursorPos = endPos; myField.value = myField.value.substring(0, startPos) + inReplyTo + myField.value.substring(endPos, myField.value.length); cursorPos += inReplyTo.length; myField.focus(); myField.selectionStart = cursorPos; myField.selectionEnd = cursorPos; } else { myField.value += inReplyTo; myField.focus(); } } //]]>

    Still want more?

    Football or Rugby?