Glentoran FC have issued the following statement on today's IFA ruling with regard to Gary Hamilton's eligibility:
It is clear from the IFA document that the concerns raised by Glentoran FC over Gary Hamilton’s eligibility for the recent Danske Bank Premiership match at the Oval have been vindicated.
The IFA has clearly accepted that Gary should have been automatically suspended FOR the match and that he was therefore ineligible. The key passage in the ruling was: “any player/manager who is recorded on the team sheet as either a player or a substitute playing for a club operating under the IFA Code will be dealt with as a player for all purposes. If he or she is dismissed by the referee this shall be as a player and the appropriate suspension shall follow”.
It is disappointing and illogical that the IFA, having clearly accepted that we faced an ineligible player whose goals had a material impact on the outcome of the match, has refused to follow the logic of this judgement. Instead the IFA has attempted to avoid the logical outcome by refusing to accept Glentoran’s right to appeal Gary’s eligibility. We do not accept this approach as either fair or rational.
Everyone in the football community needs to understand that we were fully aware of the rule regarding the issuing of red cards and that we highlighted this to the IFA in writing 24 hours in advance of the match. In that correspondence the Glentoran Chairman made clear to the IFA that the club fully intended to pursue the matter further. Had members of the IFA Disciplinary Committee been equally knowledgeable of procedure or had it given greater consideration to our formal written observations then this unfortunate situation would have been avoided.
Our next step is to proceed with our appeal to NIFL which has already been launched within the requisite timescale, as was the previous appeal to the IFA. We are confident that having read the most recent IFA comments on eligibility combined with the clearly defined sanctions for playing ineligible players as outlined in the FIFA disciplinary code, we will be successful in this appeal which will focus on this single issue.
Glentoran FC, 8th December 2014