DAILY RECORD 🔵 Gartcairn ‘disgusted’ as 15-point deduction and fine dished out amid ineligible player dispute

Gartcairn have blasted the West of Scotland League for imposing a 15-point deduction and £500 fine on the club over the fielding of an ineligible player, branding the decision ‘disgusting’.

The Airdrie-based club dispute that the player, who they do not wish to name, was ineligible and claim they have been victims of the SFA’s new player registration system ‘Comet’, which was introduced over the summer.

Gartcairn claim to have a player registration document for the player but that the SFA themselves have no evidence of any such documentation.

It also seems that Gartcairn themselves ended up flagging up the issue to the league after questioning why the player involved was down as a trialist in a recent cup match.

The MTC Park club, who have now dropped to second bottom of the West of Scotland Premier Division as a result, have released a 750-word statement slamming the decision and the lack of guidance on the new process for registering players.

It read: « The club is disgusted to announce that we have been deducted 15 points along with a £500 fine for playing an ineligible player in five WOSFL league games this season.

« We strongly deny this and have strong evidence to show that the player was actually signed after being purchased from another club.

« The West of Scotland Football League committee are in position to help all member clubs avoid making mistakes or supporting any wrong doings wherever possible, however, in this case although several pieces of evidence were shown and the committee agreed there was a huge level of doubt, but they had no option to rule against the club as in the constitution it’s black or white to whether a player is ineligible or not.

« We are very disappointed that our association are not capable of supporting clear Comet system issues due to fear of going against a constitution that we believe, due to the new comet system and all the issues the countless other member clubs are having, is now nowhere near fit for purpose.

« The club have a registration document generated by the Comet system that although, after weeks of trying to follow any support process that are simply not in place, we are being told by the SFA that they can not see any player being registered.

« We have asked for any evidence that contact or conversations between the SFA and the Comet support team could be sent to us to confirm that there was not any system back up issues or system maintenance or system downtime going on which could have caused this to happen.

« This was never shown, neither was the support ticket sent to anyone outside the SFA to confirm any wrongdoing.

« The players’ trialist registration on the system, which was not generated by the club had also been back dated to August 1st when the player had not even been released from his previous club till August 2nd and played with Gartcairn on August 3rd.

« On a live CRM system this should not be possible and the club still wait for any explanation.

« Gartcairn are not against the Comet system at all and we fully believe that given time, it will be a success however, at the moment clubs need to be given proper training and support with common sense to be used rather than a constitution that rules with an iron fist against issues out with all member clubs’ control.

« To date we are not even 1/3 into the season and there have been over 100 ineligible player teamline incidents over the WOSFL, South Challenge Cup, Scottish Junior Cup and the West of Scotland Cup so far to which teams have been fined and removed from competitions and even banned from future competitions due to clubs and our league committees not understanding Comet.

« Member clubs have been told on several occasions that Comet was introduced to make things easier and it would stop clubs playing ineligible players.

« After raising the question of why this is happening so frequently and why if a trialist has been played more than three times, why does that player continue to show in the Comet app as being an eligible player? Why have the league not brought it to the member clubs’ attention when it happens?

« The appalling answer we received was: « It is nearly impossible to check 80 clubs therefore we just don’t do it. »

« If no complaint is made then it will never be looked at until someone does complain. This means an ineligible player, for example, could play 30 league games and if a complaint is made in the last league game played, this association would go back over all games and deduct all points from when it started.

« It would also mean players could have played in cup competitions and would now need to be removed.

« When asked the question of who made a complaint against Gartcairn [was raised], we were told no-one, but a committee member of our club had simply asked a question in a cup game as to why a ‘t’ was next to one of our players, as he was believed to be a fully signed player.

« This resulted in a check of what it meant and resulted in losing 15 points and a £500 fine.

« Gartcairn find this totally unacceptable and have now been in communication with several other WOSFL clubs, who have also been let down by our association, to decide on the next steps. »

The West of Scotland League has been contacted for comment.