Scarborough Athletic, Forest Green Rovers, and when there's ineligible, but there's also 'ineligible'
For the second time in this year's FA Cup a team has fielded an ineligible player, but this time they get a rematch rather than being hoicked out of the competition.
You wait seventeen years for one to turn up, then two arrive within a couple of weeks of each other. In a way—and I appreciate that this says something both profound and depressing about the state of modern football discourse—the ejection of Barnsley from this year’s FA Cup and the resultant reinstatement of Horsham had something wholesome about it. Barnsley admitted their mistake and didn’t complain, their supporters wishing the non-league team in the next round of the competition. Horsham went to Sutton in the Second Round and lost 3-0, but still exited with their heads held high, having held the score goalless for more than an hour.
Spin forward a couple of weeks, and feels a little as though history has repeated itself. Or has it? Another EFL club, this time Forest Green Rovers, have been found to have fielded an ineligible player in their First Round match against Scarborough Athletic. But this time around there are a couple of key differences. Firstly, this issue took a lot longer to be resolved. It was known that there was an issue with this match. Last weekend’s Second Round between Blackpool and Forest Green was postponed pending the results of the investigation of the match, but this announcement was only made the day before it was due to be played.
But it’s the second question which the FA really needs to address. Rather than being unceremoniously lobbed out of the competition, as happened to Barnsley, in this case a decision has been made to replay the match, which will now be played at The *checks notes* Flamingo Land Stadium on the 12th December, with the winners travelling to Bloomfield Road for their Second Round match against Blackpool a week later.
So, what’s the difference? Why are Forest Green Rovers being permitted another throw of the dice while Barnsley weren’t? At the exact time of writing, the answer to this question is unclear. The FA have not yet released any information in their initial statement which player this was concerning or what the breach actually was. But what we do know from their statement is that this breach fell under Rule 109 of the competition’s rules (PDF). And Rule 109 reads as follows:
109. A Player that has been domestically temporarily transferred to another Club (including to or from a Welsh Club that competes in the Competition) or a Scholar on work experience at a Club in accordance with Rule C of The Association’s Rules shall be ineligible to participate in the Competition unless:
109.1. written permission has been provided by the Parent Club for the Player to play in the Competition;
109.2. a copy of the written permission is received by The Association no later than 75 minutes before the first Competition Match in which the Club intends to field the Player; and provided that
109.3. the Parent Club has not withdrawn that permission (in order for any such withdrawal to be valid, it must be made by the Parent Club to the Club and The Association no later than 75 minutes before the Club’s next Competition Match).
Guidance: Written permission may be provided by the Parent Club as part of the relevant loan agreement, or separately.
The issue in this case would appear to be goalkeeper James Belshaw, who was signed from Bristol Rovers on a seven-day emergency loan at the end of September after first choice goalkeeper Luke Daniels was injured. That loan seems to have been extended, despite the fact that it was a fallout with former Bristol Rovers manager Joey Barton that was the root cause of the loan, and that Barton has since left the club.
But Bristol Live reported that the Rovers caretaker-manager was quite happy for Belshaw to play in the FA Cup for Forest Green: "He's going to be playing in the FA Cup for Forest Green on Saturday. We gave permission for him to do that.” This may have applied to the Blackpool game—which ended up not taking place—but was this permission granted in writing for the First Round matches as well? Was it received by the FA? We can only presume that it wasn’t. What a mess.
By way of comparison, Barnsley’s breach came under Rule 103, which reads as follows:
103. Subject to Rule 104, a Player shall only be eligible to play in a Replay, or a Competition Match that was previously postponed or abandoned if:
103.1. the Player was eligible to play in the original Competition Match; and
103.2. the Player’s registration with the Club has been continuous from the date of the original Competition Match to the date of the Replay or rearranged Competition Match.
Again, we can only presume that the cases are being treated as different from each other because they fall under different rules, but why has one been treated so much more severely than the other? Belshaw was presumably ineligible, just as Aiden Marsh had been at the same stage of the competition. So, how come one of these situations is so severe that the club has to be eliminated altogether while the other gets another go? Is it because, as has been speculated, Forest Green appealed while Barnsley didn’t? We’ll have to wait for further information from the FA.
But whereas the Barnsley vs Horsham situation was at least timeously completed, this situation is far messier. Scarborough supporters will have had travel expenses for a replay between the two teams which, so far as the record books will be concerned, never took place. And the late cancellation of the Blackpool vs Forest Green match affected Forest Green supporters who’d already booked trains and accommodation for their weekend trip to Blackpool for their abandoned match.
The tight schedules of the early rounds of the FA Cup have played a not-insignificant role in all of this, but that doesn’t alter the fact that this should have been spotted sooner. At a time when the cost of living crisis is still biting hard, supporters cannot afford to be travelling 230-odd miles for matches which don’t end up meaning anything.
But then again, why should supporters even be that surprised that they’re on the receiving end of this sort of behaviour? Match-going fans have been treated as something between an inconvenience and a problem to be contained for decades, now. It will doubtless matter not a jot to the FA, that supporters of three different clubs (if we include Blackpool, who will have had to deal with the fallout from such a late cancellation as well) have been so inconvenienced. Even if the reason is relating to Forest Green appealing or some such, why was the Blackpool match only called off the day before it was due to go ahead? Why so late?
The manner in which this has been publicised seems to have been ham-fisted, right up to the release of yesterday’s statement. Surely somebody at the FA could have realised that comparisons would immediately be made between this and what happened to Barnsley, so why was some sort of full explanation not included as part of their initial statement? Further information will doubtless follow and it seems unlikely that there is a deep-state, pro-Scarborough Athletic and/or anti-Barnsley/Forest Green Rovers conspiracy within the FA, but a lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is getting its boots on and, well, we all know what the modern world is like. It only leaves the FA open to accusations of incompetence, if not malpractice.
It should also be added that the stakes in this case are pretty high, because the Third Round prize awaiting the overall winners of this little mess is a trip to The City Ground to play Nottingham Forest, a match which, on account of FA Cup gate receipt-sharing rules, will be worth a reasonable amount to whoever ends up playing, no matter what the result. It would be a bloody fortune for Scarborough Athletic. That’s why this decision was reached in the first place. But it’s also why this should all have been sorted out weeks ago, rather than being left until after the next round of the damn competition had been played.