When it comes to disregarding 'Sporting Integrity' no club in Europe would have had a bigger brass neck than Celtic as they progressed into the next round of the Champions league despite being roundly thrashed by a far superior team.
Despite only TWO minutes of the match remaining of the second leg and Celtic well beaten, the Legia Warsaw manager inadvertently fielded an ineligible player whom they believed had already served his three match suspension.
As Legia urged for common sense and sporting grace from the Celtic board and for them to acknowledge they had lost fair and square, Lawwell was having none of it and the unwashed were reinstated by UEFA.
If as now looks likely that the league cannot be completed then UEFA and the Scottish FA must order the Scottish league title null and void.
There are still many games left to play and Rangers still have a game in hand.
Sporting integrity and all that..
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Not many teams lose a tie 6-1 and go through on away goals, but that is exactly what Celtic achieved in the aftermath of their Champions League qualifier against Legia Warsaw. Celtic were thrashed in the first leg by a team that managed to miss two penalties and still beat them 4-1. The Scottish champions didn’t exactly restore their pride in the second leg, when a further 2-0 defeat left them facing an early exit from the competition that was meant to define their season.
The tie was dead and buried by the time the Legia Warsaw manager decided to give his three substitutes a run out in the dying minutes of the second leg. Legia were 6-1 up and cruising towards the next round when the last of those substitutes, Bartosz Bereszynski, came on in the 88th minute. Bereszynski had no impact on the scoreline, but his mere presence on the pitch has since caused Legia to be expelled from the competition.
The defender was sent off in Legia’s final Europa League match last season and was given a three-match ban, which he thought he had served by the time Legia reached Edinburgh. He had sat out of Legia’s two matches in the previous round against St Patrick’s and then he missed the first leg against Celtic.
Bereszynski was absent for three matches but because the club had not registered him for the St Patrick’s tie, the games he missed did not count towards his suspension and Uefa deemed him ineligible to play against Celtic. Legia’s 2-0 victory was scrubbed from the record books and Celtic were granted a 3-0 victory, which was enough to take them into the next round on away goals.
The Polish champions were worthy winners against Celtic over 180 minutes. Should they be kicked out of the competition because they used an ineligible player for four of those minutes?
www.theguardian.com
