Football League Threaten Cardiff City

Cardiff City are currently left hanging after comments from the Football League suggesting star new signing Craig Bellamy may not be permitted to play for the Bluebirds.

There has been considerable media hype over the past few days, but instead of focussing on the sensational coup for CCFC and the Championship, most reports have blasted the Bluebirds over their finances with the overwhelming message on most rivals messageboards being: It's not fair! Awww.

It is completely unacceptable that we owe Motherwell a considerable amount of money for Paul Quinn, but the repeated outburts from 'Well are bizarre to say the least. Perhaps they're still hurting from the loss of Ross McCormack for a paltry £100k fee - a situation that hit us far harder when Ledley opted for Scotland.

Gethin Jenkjins and Dave Jones have both assured that the outstanding money will be paid this week. Whilst Motherwell claimed there has been no dialogue, that is simply not true as the Bluebirds had offered payment packages to Motherwell.

Now, Greg Clarke, chairman of the Football League has spoken of the possibility that he could step in and refuse to register Craig Bellamy. He told Sky Sports:


"We have to register the player and we have asked Cardiff for certain information, which will be confidential between them and us, which will allow us to appraise whether we will register the player or not."

"Without pointing the finger directly at Cardiff, I have an abiding principle that people in business and in personal lives should always pay their debts."

"It depends what money they have available and it depends whether they intend to take on an obligation and extinguish their other obligations at the same time, I don`t know the answers to that, but we will find out the answers."


Of course, Cardiff City are currently not under a transfer embargo and have been free to register players. The capture of Craig Bellamy is so high profile, that questions are undoubtedly raised as to whether we can afford the extra burden on our wage bill - thought to be around £20-25k per week.

Would the chairman of the football league be intervening if Joe Ledley had accepted such a contract - after all, with goal bonuses - Michael Chopra's wage is not too far short of Bellamy's (our %)....

CCFC have stressed they do not expect these comments to cause any problem and will be in discussions today to clarify the position.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.