Costly clearance hitch

GEELONG has copped a brutal blow to start its State League 1 promotion campaign, stripped of its opening-round point after a clearance problem was discovered with one of its international stars.

The player is registered to Geelong, but the club was unaware that he didn’t have an international clearance through FFA until this week.

As a result, its 7-2 FFA Cup win over Doveton and its 1-1 State League 1 draw with Western Suburbs were changed to 3-0 forfeits.

The club is now weighing up its options and is considering appealing the decision, with secretary Rob Kukanovski saying Geelong was disappointed with the ruling.

“We’ve worked hard over the summer,” Kukanovski said.

“It’s one of those things that’s not a fault of our own.

“When there’s an international player there’s a process that has to be undertaken.

“In this case the international player was introduced to us by an agent. Somewhere between the agent, the football federation and ourselves, we didn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

Geelong had been preparing to play in the FFA Cup’s fifth round against Bulleen Lions this weekend.

But the biggest blow comes with the decision to strip it of its opening State League 1 point.

The club has made clear its ambition to get promoted, and every point will be valuable come the end of the season in a very competitive league. Kukanovski said the club felt the paperwork error should have been picked up before the start of the season.

“We’re a little bit disappointed it wasn’t picked up after our first round in the FFA Cup,” he said. “That game was on the 10th of March. It was nearly 2½ weeks until it was picked up.

“Our disappointment was around the process and why it wasn’t picked up (back then). We would have been more than happy to deal with it then and it wouldn’t have affected the league.

“The timing of that, unfortunately, it picked up the FFA Cup and league game.

“Although there wasn’t technically an international transfer done by the correct means, it was a paid-for registration with FFV for that FFA Cup match.”

Kukanovski said he was hopeful the clearance would come through within the next 48 hours.

“We’ve asked for an urgent fast-tracking of his clearance through FFA,” he said.

“We’re doing everything we can do have his clearance done.”