Cardiff City Going to Wembley, But Not Europe

In response to a very good question posed by Dave from Dave’s Football Blog in a comment under this post, the answer is no. Turns out Cardiff City won’t be eligible to compete in the UEFA Cup next season should they go all the way in the FA Cup this season.

The problem is that Cardiff City are a Welsh team competing in an English competition. The English FA will not put them forward as a European representative because they’re not an English team, and the FA of Wales cannot put them forward as a Welsh representative because they don’t play in any FAW competitions. It’s the old rock and a hard place scenario.

Part of the problem is – shock – the English FA’s inflexibility. Here’s what an FA representative had to say.

Our position remains unchanged and should Cardiff win the FA Cup this season they would not be chosen as the FA’s nomination for European competition.

Cardiff enter into English domestic competitions on this understanding and they are fully aware of the rules and regulations under which they take part.

These rules remain the same and there would be no scope for Cardiff, or any of the other Welsh clubs in the English system, to qualify for Europe as England’s representative.

So that’s that. At the same time, Welsh clubs aren’t keen on any sort of compromise that would damage their own chances at European qualification. Carmarthen Town might not win the UEFA Cup anytime soon, but damn they’ve earned the right to give it a go and see no reason to give up that right to a team that think they’re too big for the Welsh domestic league.

The result is that Cardiff City will never ever play in Europe, which is a bit sad. Especially because they had a real chance this year, because if they were an English club they could still qualify as runners-up should they lose to Portsmouth in the final and Portsmouth already have a UEFA Cup spot through their Premier League position.

All this messiness is part of a bigger problem in British football, where the league English is unequally powerful and therefore home to players from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Occasionally it gets messy, as with this situation, but if FIFA ever introduce the 6+5 rule there’s going to be absolute chaos as everyone involved tries to convince Sepp Blatter that British players shouldn’t be treated as foreigners in the Premier League and Blatter suggests the home nations lose their national identity and merge. There will be blood. Metaphorically, of course.

In the meantime, the only hope Cardiff City has of playing in Europe is for either the English FA to show some forward thinking flexibility (don’t hold your breath) or to find a compromise that allows them to compete in the Welsh FA Cup somehow and earn a European spot that way.

But really, it doesn’t matter. As mentioned earlier, the FA Cup this year isn’t about European qualification. It’s about lifting the famous old trophy, and if the Bluebirds manage that feat, then the technicalities of UEFA Cup qualification will (hopefully) be the last thing on everyone’s mind at that point.

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Category: England