Indiscipline knocks out Brazil

By Fidelis Ebu, Abuja
Three time champions, Brazil, were knocked out of the on-going Nigeria 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup due to their poor disciplinary record in the tournament.

Although the South Americans garnered equal number of points with the likes of The Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates with the same goal aggregates, the Brazilians were sent packing because they had more yellow cards than the other two countries.

FIFA Vice President and Chairman of the U-17  Organising Committee, Jack Warner, told journalists in Abuja that there was no way they could accommodate Brazil as fair play was used to determine who moved ahead among the three.

“I shed no tears for Brazil as the Netherlands and UAE had better disciplinary records. If they had scored more goals, perhaps they would have made it.”

This was the first time FIFA decided the fate of a team through disciplinary record as even the vice president himself confessed that after going through records, they could not find any similar decision in the past.
Warner said, “we checked this morning but couldn’t find any example and that tells you the importance of fairplay.”