The Gibraltar Football Association whilst noting the grudging nature of the Executive Committee’s decision to finally comply with the court of Arbitration’s decision of last July, nevertheless greatly welcomes the decision to grant provisional membership of UEFA. It is unfortunate that it has taken the Executive Committee of UEFA so many years and three clear legal judgements before finally complying with their duties and obligations. The Association hopes that it will not take a similar number of years and court cases for it to obtain the full membership to which it is entitled under the UEFA Statutes as at the time that its application was made.

The Gibraltar Football Association notes with dismay the completely unacceptable attempt by the FIFA Executive Committee to try and influence UEFA and its member associations against this Association’s application for membership. It is intentionally misleading on the part of FIFA, on the eve of the UEFA decision and as it previously tried to do in February 2004, to come out with the statement that this Association does not meet statutory requirements to become a FIFA member. As FIFA well knows, the current statutes of FIFA do not apply to the GFA’s 1997 application for membership of FIFA. As FIFA also well knows from the recent CAS rulings, the FIFA Statutes that apply to the GFA’s application are those in place in 1997 to 1999 and under those statutes we meet all statutory requirements of FIFA. This was confirmed by FIFA itself in a letter dated 3rd March 1999. It does FIFA little credit to distort facts in such a way and to attempt to influence the members of one of its confederations in such an unsavoury manner.

The Gibraltar Football Association also notes with regret the scale mongering tactics being employed by the UEFA Chief Executive Lars Christer Olsson in his comments as reported in last Saturday’s Chronicle. For Mr Olsson to say that the granting of membership to this Association could open up all sorts of political issues such as the Basque or Catalan questions in Spain etc., is complete and absolute nonsense and a distortion of reality. The reason UEFA amended its statutes in 2002 was ostensibly in order to ensure that the Basques, Catalans, Cantons etc,. could not apply for membership. At the time the Statutes were amended in 2001, UEFA had not, and indeed to date UEFA has not received any application for membership from the association of any such region. This being the case if any such application was received from the Basques etc., in the future it would not comply with the then current statutes and would fail. The situation of the Gibraltar Football Association is different as the application was made years before the statutes were amended in 2001 and that is why three legal bodies have held we are entitled to membership under pre-2001 Statutes. Mr Olsson knows this as well as he should know that UEFA’s own Statutes provides that there should be no discrimination on the grounds of politics, race, origin etc., within UEFA.

The Gibraltar Football Association will continue with its struggle to obtain full membership of UEFA for as long as it is necessary for the good of the youth of Gibraltar and the development of the sport in Gibraltar.