Daniel James - a summer signing from Hull - is still ineligible to play due to paperwork issues between the FAW & FIFA, and the Swans are reported to be considering legal action. Should the Swans look to transfer to the FA and sever ties with the FAW completely?
Only in Britain could a player require international clearance to transfer between two teams who play in the same league. Well, perhaps there are others (Monaco?), but it's growing increasingly hard to stomach the issue because it's entirely borne of our affiliation to the Football Association of Wales.
Back in May 2011 Swansea & Cardiff severed ties with the FAW in terms of on-field sanctions. This was after it was raised that, if an incident involved a team from Wales and a team from England (which would almost always be the case when an incident involved Cardiff or the Swans), then two separate disciplinary panels would never result in a fair and even decision for both teams.
The decision to come under the FA's umbrella as opposed to the FAW for disciplinary decisions was, generally, greeted with glee by Swansea fans, who felt that for a long time we'd been getting the rough end of the stick from the FAW. Whether that's true is up for debate, but I do remember incidents against Derby, Reading & Havant where fans seemed aggrieved at the punishments handed out.
This latest incident though concerns "international clearance", which is required as any players transferring from an English club to a Welsh club are moving football associations, and while players making such a move are moving country it does seem a particularly spectacular piece of pointless bureaucracy, considering the clubs involved in both play in the same league. And the player is Welsh.
This has made me ask - what benefit do we get from being under the FAW's umbrella? It was reported that, when jurisdiction for disciplinary proceedings transferred to the FA, the FAW would strongly oppose any move by the Swans or Cardiff to be governed exclusively by the FA, but what could they do if we decided to jump ship? I'm struggling to see many (if any) negatives associated with transferring to the FA for all matters, apart from maybe being ostracised by the FAW...and would that be so much of a big deal?
Apart from putting on good coaching courses it's rare you hear them doing anything positive, and with the amount of outreach programs the Swans are currently operating I don't think we need any kind of "big brother" helping us oversee youth development on a local or national level. Especially one who doesn't seem to want to help us bring a young Welsh player to the only Welsh club currently playing in the Premier League.
Huw has spoken out after it took over TWO MONTHS for the FAW to get back to us, after youngster Daniel James was unveiled on the 5th of August following his arrival from Hull. When they did? International clearance was denied! How?! The club have stated that although they have the right to appeal, nobody at the FAW knows how to do this, or what the timescale of an appeal would be. Ridiculous.
Here's what Huw had to say on the matter:
“We find it quite unfair that we have got a young Welsh player who has come to play in Wales and yet he has been unable to do that. The two clubs agreed a transfer some time ago, yet we haven’t got permission to play Dan.
“We have transferred senior players from all over the world, we have sorted out work permits for them and got them playing for us, but we have had a problem with this deal.
“We feel we are at a disadvantage compared to other Premier League clubs because we have to go through the process of getting international clearance.”
http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Swansea-City-consider-legal-action-week-wait/story-23053998-detail/story.html#YY0QOL8rpO2LTtpS.99
It's hard to disagree that we're at a disadvantage by having to go through the FAW, and in my opinion if we aren't already looking at how we'd go about lumping in with the FA for all matters it's something we should definitely broach in the near future. Sure, there'll be backlash and yes, I'm sure hardcore nationalists won't like the idea, but I'd say it's overwhelmingly in the best interests of the club for us to step away from the FAW completely.
Whether this will happen at any point is massively up for debate, but if there are any more problems such as the one we're currently dealing with in regards to Daniel James, I wouldn't bet against it happening next summer.
The sooner the better, if you ask me.