Jones Coming Home

The January transfer season saw Alex Jones move to Wellington Phoenix for a short loan spell which would keep him on the other side of the world until May 3rd. This would enable him to play competitive games that are a slight step up from the U21 league, but not too much of a leap where he would be out of his depth.

At the time, it seemed like a really good decision. However, hindsight is a wonderful thing because Jones will not be allowed to play for the club due to FIFA refusing to register him over there. The Australian A-league side completed all of the paperwork that they were required to do as did Birmingham City. So both clubs feel disappointed by the lack of urgency at the official process.

New Zealand Football failed to grant Jones’ international clearance on time which they were supposed to do via an online document. Because of this, the deadline was missed and therefore it was said that he did not have authorisation to play in that league.

As both clubs did do the correct and formal process, it was referred to Fifa’s Player Status Committee so that they could look over and scrutinise the process in case anything could be done to allow Alex to stay and play football for Wellington Phoenix.

However, FIFA always feel the need to show themselves off as being powerful and dictating the laws of the current game. So despite this being a one off case, they wanted to uphold their integrity and deny Alex the license to play. A spokesman for the case said that, “While FIFA acknowledged the individual circumstances…they have ruled to protect the integrity of their global deadlines for the transfer of players.’

It seems as though they want everything to be done perfectly but when online documents are filled in by a middle man between both clubs, then surely a little bit of common sense should be used when it goes wrong. Never the less, Alex Jones will be coming back to Birmingham and he will no doubt be linking back up with Popa in the U21’s.