Titles Are Won on the Pitch, Not in Court
Rivaldo on the CAS Appeal:
“A team that was not good enough to win the title on the pitch does not deserve the trophy. Football is a beautiful sport and should be played on the pitch.”
So true. What all of us are feeling. Full story here.
April 21, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Last night Ribo said that if the CAS decided what it did today, then he would leave Greece and go back to Brazil. Right now, we dont know if that is really the case but we have heard that he is refusing to play in the play-offs. He stated that he, along with every other player for AEK, is a champion this year and that champions dont play in play-offs.
April 21, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Great injustice! Only one team deserves to be champion: AEK!
Courtcase should have been held long before the end of the season. Even if we would have won in court the championship would have tasted different.
AEK fan from the Netherlands,
KG
April 22, 2008 at 9:01 am
guys,
AEK played really well in the last 4-5 games in the championship, especially with Olympiacos. alot of you are basing you opionions that AEK should have won the championship on this. This unfortunately is not the case. if it was then Asteras Tripolis or Ari played should have won it, as they had a more consistent performance.
Rules and regulations apply everywhere, not only in football. If there were no rules, Ronaldinho could have played for AEK in the game with Asteras. But why didnt AEK tell Ronaldinho to play? Because they didnt think of it?No, because there are rules.
I consider Olympiacos very lucky as they were the first team to play Appollon Kalamarias. If AEK had played them and lost points, they would have done the same.
J
April 22, 2008 at 10:15 am
I dont think a consistent performance matters very much when, in the case of Aris, the team in the next position in the standings is 16 points away from you.
I think also the 30 million euro price tag on Ronaldinho also might have made him slightly less likely to play for AEK.
Nobody is complaining about the result of the court case, but we are saying that the whole situation was handled in a very poor manner. The helenic football federation, as mentioned by CAS, never had any right to remove points from Kalamarias, give them to oly, or change the standings in any way. The HFF reviewed Wallner (the “ineligible” player before) long before Kalamarias even played him. They said he was allowed to play, since he was loaned to one of his previous teams. Only after the match that oly lost did the HFF suddenly decide that Wallner could not play (before that loss he was perfectly eligible to play??). Olympiacos knew about the player before the match but decided not to do anything. Kalamarias never intended to do anything wrong since they assumed Wallner was ready to go according to epo. This desicion could have (although, of course, this cant be proved) had an effect on kalamarias’s performance after than match and could have meant the difference between staying in the “super”league or going to B division.
April 22, 2008 at 10:26 am
Very good clarification/explanation Alex. Cheers.