And you too will have a little asterisk next to your name if the season is finished, you end up fifth and City are banned. * Qualified not through merit, but because another team were not allowed to compete. You'll surely step aside and let another team through, won't you?
A bit like your lot in 2005 then? When the PL rules were literally changed to allow you lot in. Special dispensation FC
UEFA and the FA's decision not the PL. And the FA had promised Arsenal/Chelsea a place in the CL if they won it in 2004 and finished 5th but then changed their tune to exclude Liverpool in 2005. So the rule was literally changed to try to exclude Liverpool. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2005/may/06/newsstory.liverpool "The FA faced major embarrassment today after it emerged that its decision to exclude Liverpool from next year's Champions League unless they finished fourth in the Premiership flies in the face of a ruling they made last year when Chelsea and Arsenal were potentially in a similar predicament." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_F.C._2005–06_UEFA_Champions_League_qualification
Nope. The first line of that wiki page you’ve posted; Liverpool F.C. qualified for the 2005–06 UEFA Champions League by a special dispensation from UEFA.
Special dispensation from UEFA after the FA changed the rule just to exclude Liverpool in the first place. Justice from UEFA against the ABL FA. "The FA faced major embarrassment today after it emerged that its decision to exclude Liverpool from next year's Champions League unless they finished fourth in the Premiership flies in the face of a ruling they made last year when Chelsea and Arsenal were potentially in a similar predicament."
Those Premier League rules that both Arsenal and Chelsea had been told the season before that they would qualify for the CL the next season if they won it and finished fifth? Those rules? Those rules that acknowledged that the only precedent was Real winning it in 2000 and Zaragoza being demoted to the Uefa, with no protest whatsoever? But finally, the rules were not changed at all - they were clarified for the next season onwards so that the FA, who made the idiotic decision to award Everton the place as they thought UEFA would give Liverpool a place anyway, would not be in such a farcical position again. Five eligible clubs for four available places[edit] England’s high country coefficient allowed the maximum number of teams (four) to be entered into the Champions League competition.[1] In the 2004–05 season, five English teams had qualified under the previous UEFA guidelines for the competition: Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Everton, who had finished in the top four places in the Premier League; and Liverpool, who had won the Champions League. The choice of which team to be excluded (either fourth-placed finishers Everton or Champions League winners Liverpool) fell to the Football Association (FA), which was given this authority by the version of Champions League Regulation 1.03 then in force:[2] At the request of the national association concerned, the UEFA Champions League title holders may be entered for this competition, as an additional representative of that association, if they have not qualified for the UEFA Champions League via the top domestic league championship. If, in such a case, the title holders come from an association entitled to enter four teams for the UEFA Champions League, the fourth-placed club in the top domestic league championship has to be entered for the UEFA Cup. This situation was unusual but neither unprecedented nor unforeseen. Real Zaragoza finished fourth in La Liga in 1999–2000 but went into the UEFA Cup because Real Madrid, who finished fifth, were given Spain's fourth Champions League place as defending champions.[3] The RFEF's choice under Regulation 1.03 likely had as much to do with Real Madrid is more prominent than Real Zaragoza, and the former being the reigning Champions League title holder.[4] Indeed, the FA itself foresaw the same situation arising in the 2003–04 season and released a statement on 10 March 2004 that if Arsenal or Chelsea won the Champions League, but failed to finish in the top four Premier League spots, they would nonetheless be automatically entered in the next year's competition, and the fourth placed Premier League team placed in the UEFA Cup.[5] "On 5 May, the FA decided that the top four finishing teams in the Premier League would be entered into the Champions League even if Liverpool did win the upcoming Champions League Final. The FA also believed that if Liverpool won in Istanbul and did not finish in the top four in the Premiership, an extra place should be allocated to them in the Champions League the following season.[6] When the inconsistency was pointed out to the FA, the FA pulled the previous year's statement from its website, and promised that an explanation would follow.[5] In the event, no explanation was forthcoming." Full article on Wiki.
No rules were changed to exclude you though, the rules of qualification were set before the start of the season and you didn’t qualify FACT. UEFA made you Special Dispensation FC to avoid the embarrassment of the previous year’s winners not qualifying for the competition.
The previous season is irrelevant as it didn’t happen, they never changed their own rules of qualification afterwards and didn’t make the same statement in 2005. Probably because they’d have been sued to hell and back if they’d have actually tried to implement it the prior year. The facts are, you didn’t qualify and got made an * exception. That’s literally it.
That would mean an awful lot of ludicrous VAR decisions like the one you got at PSG, but right the way through the competition. You don't have that money next season. Nah, just put three into the competition and null and void the third place. It'll probably save dying orphans from Corovavirus, or some such humbug.
Nope, the rule was always that the FA had the power to put the winners in at the expense of the 4th place team. The FA decided they didn't want to use that rule for Liverpool after publicly announcing they were happy to do it for Arsenal or Chelsea. UEFA didn't think a football asscociation would ever be so bitter as to prefer 4th place over winners, so stepped in to correct the injustice.
I'm seeing lots of Liverpool crying again, it's like a virus in itself. Please hurry up and GIVE them the title, while the rest of the world was mourning it's dead, Liverpool were gagging desperate for Premiership silverware. Amen.
They’d patently realised that statement the previous year was ill judged and wholly unfair, so they didn’t repeat the same mistake. You can’t change the rules of qualification a few weeks from the end of the season, solely because the potential CL winners weren’t good enough to qualify for the following season by the actual rules of their domestic league. So they made an exception for special dispensation FC. A bit like when you went into administration by proxy but didn’t suffer a points deduction.
So who are you hoping to draw in the Club World Championship this year? you are the holders so surely don't need to actually qualify.
That's it in a nutshell. UEFA were astonished, and not a little incredulous, that they had to change THEIR rule (the FA never had a written rule on it according to Barwick, just a convention) to ensure that it didn't happen again. They didn't ****ing re-write the rules at all - they just ensured that in future no association (meaning England's) wouldn't be so bias against one of its own teams again.
