FC Red Star
Active Member
2019 Nations Cup is scheduled one week earlier (July 12-14, 2019) than originally planned (July 19-21, 2019) due to turf resurfacing at Hugh Boyd.
Beg to disagree.
The quality in the O-30s is fantastic.
I prefer an O-30 game to a Open game sometimes.
And no, a preseason friendly between an Open team and an O-30s is not indicative of the gulf at all IMHO Machel.
Especially the Caribbean team losing by that margin - They must have been off and/or lacking players.
However, organizers need to do a better job. Is the 3 foreign players rule in effect? Every year same story. Too many non- national players playing for a particular country. Open portugal team for example had maybe 3 portugese kids. They shouldnt be able to compete. Something is got a give. Some others team are doing same thing. When do you draw a line that enough is enough? Something to think about.
It is summer time and it is supposed to be fun (and it is) so, bottom line, who cares who plays for who.
robino,
This is the “official statement” from the tournament organizer: “This unique concept of grouping players based on their ethnic backgrounds and/or countries of origin creates an exciting atmosphere that provides a platform for people throughout the community to express their ethnic pride”.
Quite simple, correct? Or, is it?
The term “ethnic background” is very broad on its own. Where do you draw the line? Nationality? Ethnicity? Ethnic groups (Slavic, Nordic, etc.)? Religion? Or, to add to the list, maybe country borders? Citizenship? Regional borders? Continents?
Look at, for example, 16 teams in Men’s Open: Africa, Arabia, Canada, China, Croatia, England, Fiji, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Scotland, and Serbia.
Two teams (Africa and Arabia) are supposed to be representing either a whole continent (Africa) or a region (Arabia in this case is not one country - Saudi Arabia; I heard that Arabia in this tournament is actually supposed to be representing a region of 22 countries that make Arab League). Other 14 teams are clearly countries. Obviously, the tournament in this category (Men's Open) has a mix of teams where some represent regions while some represent specific countries so that is a problem on its own re policing players' eligibility.
Croatia and Serbia represent ethnic Croats and ethnic Serbs but both those ethnic groups belong to Slavs (countries considered to be official Slavic states are Czech Republic, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Poland, Slovakia, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro).
As a matter of fact, somebody could put players from those 13 countries into one team based on their Slavic roots and they would not break the Nations Cup rule re ethnic background.
Having said all this, it is obvious that it is impossible to police the teams’ lists. That is why I said that it really does not matter.
The organizer actually left it to the teams that are competing to protest within one hour after the game. Has anyone ever protested the eligibility of any player? Probably not. Actually, it would be very interesting to see how quick the ruling would be (if somebody protested a player's eligibility) considering how broad that “ethnic background” category is.
This, of course, does not mean that glaring examples of breaking the eligibility rule should be accepted and I am quite sure you were referring to those glaring examples.
Any updates/scores from Day 1?