The Romanian Liga 1 teams and the entities in charge of organizing the competition are regulars at CAS. In 2013 for instance, Rapid Bucuresti won a relegation play-off vs. Concordia Chiajna and played two matches in the 2013/2014 season. However, Chiajna's officials contested the FA's decision to organize the play-off at CAS - asking for emergency procedures (I'm not sure if this is the correct legal term, but, hey, I'm a programmer, not a lawyer). CAS ruled in Concordia Chiajna favour and they were reinstated in Liga 1, although the competition had already started.
You might wonder what does this have to do with Serbia vs. Albania? Well, I'll get to that.
On 12 June, the CAS website published this little announcement:
"The CAS procedure between the Football Association of Albania, the Football Association of Serbia and UEFA is in progress and a final decision is expected to be announced by 10 July 2015, at the latest."
Now, the Albanian FA were aware the 2018 preliminary draw was scheduled for 25 July. There were also some rumours on the internet about the July ranking being used for seeding, as it was used 4 years before. Somebody at the Albanian FA should have studied this and ask CAS for emergency procedures (and here's the connection to the Liga 1 story above), because FIFA don't recompute already published rankings if a result of an older match changes.
Had CAS ruled a week earlier (before the Sunday deadline for matches to be included in the July ranking), Albania would have been in Pot 2, with Bosnia-Herzegovina dropping to Pot 3, while Serbia would have fallen to Pot 4, with Turkey taking their place.
So the ruling came a week to late for Albania, or just in time if you look from a Serbian point of view. (I don't take sides. I've offered my services to both FAs in the past.)
The CAS ruling will affect the August ranking though. Albania will improve its best ever ranking (at least 24th), while Serbia (at most 64th) will drop to a new worst ever ranking.
Yeah you're right
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion they made this deliberately anyway i respect the decision :)
Forca Albaniaaa!