Bandits FC claims that Canada Soccer cost them a shot at the gold medal game due to a late eligibility ruling, which also led to a $2,500 fine.<\/p>\n
Bandits FC received the bad news while they were out celebrating before their big gold medal game the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround 5, 6 O\u2019Clock, we got a call that we were no longer in first place, as someone had an ineligible player, a different team, and the result ended up with us going to the bronze medal game instead,\u201d explained Thom Findlay, a Bandit FC player.<\/p>\n
Every roster is examined by provincial associations before being able to play, and Canada Soccer approved every player, including the bc player who ended up being declared ineligible due to having to be over 35 to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, a birthdate is a pretty easy thing to check. We figured at least that would be something that\u2019s easy to check during registration or before the tournament started to make sure everyone was the right age, but, apparently, it didn\u2019t come out until all the games were played,\u201d said Findlay.<\/p>\n
Canada Soccer revoked that approval and ruled the player ineligible, and removed multiple B.C. results after the group stage was complete. That last-minute move flipped the standings and changed which teams would advance.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst reaction is, of course, disappointment. Not understanding why, when we took all the necessary steps to ensure that we had submitted all the rosters,\u201d said Trevor Perrault, a Bandit FC player.<\/p>\n
What came along with the disappointment was a 7 a.m. bronze medal game the next day that the Banidts didn\u2019t play, resulting in a $2,500 fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter feeling that we were justifiably playing for gold, no longer playing for that right, we didn\u2019t feel that we would be willing to show up to that bronze medal game the next morning. Hence the reason why we reached out in advance to Quebec, just being a professional club and giving a common courtesy and letting them know we won\u2019t be attending that game,\u201d explained Perrault.<\/p>\n
The team says that they were hoping that Canada Soccer would reach out and provide them some form of apology.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re both now fathers, we have young children. We were fortunate enough that this event was being held in Winnipeg, in our hometown, we had our parents were once again there to experience that moment, our children, who were ecstatic after a dramatic win, to make it into the finals. And now we are being told we are no longer playing in the gold medal game,\u201d said Perrault.<\/p>\n
CityNews reached out to Canada Soccer and the Manitoba Soccer Association for a response, but has not heard back at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bandits FC claims that Canada Soccer cost them a shot at the gold medal game due to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-298611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}