Manchester City will play in next season’s Uefa Cup after claiming a place via the Premier League’s fair play table. England were awarded an extra place in the tournament after the Premier League came top of Uefa’s fair play rankings. City had
feared losing out to Fulham in the race for European football after centre-back Richard Dunne was sent off in the 8-1 defeat by Middlesbrough in their final game of the season. Depsite that lapse they held off the challenge of Fulham to finish sixth in the English Fair Play table but crucially above any team who has not already qualified for Europe.
City will join the Uefa Cup at the first qualifying round stage in July and compete in the Northern region. This puts them in line to face opposition from Estonia, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Lithuania or Luxembourg, or opposition closer to home as there are two Northern Irish representatives Glentoran and Cliftonville, two from the Republic in Cork City and current league leaders St Patrick’s Athletic, as well as Bangor from Wales. There is also the possibility of a rematch with Wales’ other representatives The New Saints who, as Total Network Solutions, faced City when they last got into the UEFA Cup by the same route in 2003.
Ironically, City have already confirmed they will not be able to host the first qualifying round tie at their own stadium as the pitch is due to be relaid once a Bon Jovi concert has taken place in June. Old Trafford is unlikely to be a choice and most Lancashire grounds would either be relaying their surface or deemed unsuitable, Huddersfield Town’s Galpharm Stadium, which usually plays host to rugby league in the summer, has been mentioned as a possible alternative.
(compiled from ESPN, CNN and other news agency articles)
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=535761&cc=5901
Very similar…
Blatantly copied and pasted from ESPN.
Hmm. Taking a look through the articles online on this news, what appears to be up with ESPN and elsewhere is everybody is copying from the same basic news agency reports.
The section on potential opponents? Seen pretty much word for word at the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/may/16/manchestercity.uefa
and definately word for word at the Premier League’s own website:
http://www.premierleague.com/page/Headlines/0,,12306~1314037,00.html
and nearly word for word on the Times Online, which attributes it’s article in part to news agencies:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_city/article3946277.ece
As for Man City’s pitch being relaid? The part on the Bon Jovi concert is seen word for word on the Telegraph, and based on the time stamps, dated an hour before the ESPN article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/sport/2008/05/16/ufnshin216.xml
and the stadium replacements part is seen word for word on The Press Association news agency’s own news release:
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hu5i60T5CPBHTk1n41sbkAmpb1RQ
No it’s not the best way to handle these agency reports, but given the news cycles this sort of practice is inevitable.
Will City have to forfeit due to lack of squad size is now the big question. Thanks Thaskin.
Thaskin came out and said the reports are false. Necessary changes will occur but not the whole squad…
and if you cant trust him, who can you trust?
I think Man city deserve the champions league spot but I am really worry about Sven being sacked …sacking him after one season does not mean good for the team and the Fa should do something fast before these foreign funds kill off the game in this part of the world
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Ryan, Chris, et al
I did compile the post from a couple of of sources. I did rewrite some of their passages to suit my own taste. Normally I mention or attribute but in this case I forgot. I’ve modified the post to note that it was compiled from several sources.
My apologies, it was not my intention to make it seem like I was breaking some hot news story that no one else had covered.