HAPLESS EFL LET BIG BOYS BEND RULES

DA SECTION of Anne Frank’s diary was read aloud at Italian football matches in midweek after Lazio fans put up anti-Semitic stickers around the Stadio Olimpico. The postings depicted Anne in a Roma shirt. Meanwhile, black visitors to Atletico Madrid’s new stadium will no doubt be charmed to approach it along Avenida de Luis Aragones. English football is far from perfect, as FA chairman Greg Clarke admitted yesterday, but compared to parts of Europe it remains almost enlightened. CLAUDE PUEL has one advantage at Leicester: he is not in debt to the players for his job. He can call it how he sees it, rather than how they want it. And it is up to the owners to back him if tough judgments are made.

eeP down, the Football League know that according to the rules Arsenal and Manchester City should be out of the Carabao Cup. They just can’t possibly admit that, because it would make them look even more incompetent than they already appear. And that’s going some. So they’re doing what they always do. They’re making it up as they go along.

On Tuesday, the two Premier League clubs needed extra time to reach the quarter- finals in their matches with Norwich and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Both made use of the rule permitting an additional, fourth substitute to be used in the added 30 minutes, as the competition allows. Yet Arsenal and Manchester City did not stop there. Having not used their full complement of three replacements in 90 minutes, they brought on two substitutes each in extra time.

The match referees allowed it but, after losing the game 2-1, Norwich protested. They said the rules allowed for 3+1 substitutes; not 2+2, 1+3 or 0+4. They even cited Rule 10, where this was recorded. And here it is: 10.1

Subject to Rule 10.2, in all matches, each team is permitted up to seven substitutes of whom not more than three may take part in the match. 10.2 Where any match goes to extra time (in accordance with the provisions of Rules 14.4, 14.5 and/ or 14.6), then subject to the League having obtained the prior approval of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) to the application of this Rule, each Club participating in that match will be permitted to use an additional substitute (in extra time only).

So, that’s reasonably clear. Firstly, the League differentiates between ‘the match’ and ‘extra time’. No more than three substitutes may take place in ‘the match’ while ‘an additional substitute’ can be used ‘in extra time only’. That’s substitute singular. Were multiple unused substitutes permitted, the plural would have been used.

By the rules, it appears Arsenal and Manchester City fielded ineligible players and should be removed from the competition. Then again, by the rules, both sides in a Carabao Cup tie between Bournemouth and Brighton should have gone last month, because eddie Howe used two substitutes in extra time and Chris Hughton used four. And the reason Wolves did not appear as vexed as Norwich was that Bristol Rovers had done it against them in the previous round, too.

So, either managers have been misinformed by officials because the rulebook skimped on specifics, or the Football League doesn’t know how to organise a football competition. And Norwich’s complaint brought this into the open. So the League bluffed. On Wednesday, at 12.29pm, a clarification arrived from Mark Rowan, eFL communications director.

‘

Further to some confusion earlier today surrounding the rules concerning the use of a fourth substitute in the Carabao Cup, I thought it may be useful to send the following clarification. A maximum of seven substitutes may be nominated for any match. Clubs may use three of those seven substitutes at any time in a match (including extra time). Clubs are permitted to use a fourth substitute if the tie goes into extra time.’

The message even helpfully included Rule 10, except this evidence did not say that ‘clubs may use three of those seven substitutes at any time in a match (including extra time).’ Yesterday it was reported the rules may be rewritten to make this clear. A rule nobody had thought to write until the competition reached the last eight.

The Football League have form on this. In 2009, Jermain Defoe helped eliminate Burnley from what was then the Carling Cup. He did not play for Tottenham in the first leg of the semi-final, which they won 4-1, but had signed from Portsmouth by the time of the second leg.

Burnley led that game 3-0 to take it into extra time when Roman Pavlyuchenko and Defoe scored. Defoe played all 120 minutes. Burnley queried Defoe joining the tie at what was basically half-time. They argued the tie began at kick- off at White Hart Lane, and rosters were then set.

The Football League turned out to have no definitive regulations in place to administer two-leg matches. It was explained if a player was registered for league action, he was considered registered for the Carling Cup, too.

It was then asked where this rule was documented. The Football League explained it was a ‘silent rule’. Just like the silent rule that seems to have been bouncing around in the ether this season.

Now, we could dismiss this as another example of football’s duffers stuffing up — like at that fiasco of a draw yesterday — were it not for one, seemingly unrelated incident.

This week the same organisation that cannot organise their own competition won the right to take roughly £40m in fines from QPR. Similar penalties could be meted out to Leicester and Bournemouth, and one day the Football League could finish a club, as they nearly did Luton.

So, while it was unavoidable that Arsenal and Manchester City should take their place in yesterday’s draw, administrative incompetence is no trifle. Pep Guardiola was very unhappy with the lightness of the Carabao Cup balls; the lightness of the Football League rulebook should be just as much of a concern.