Celtic Owe Legia Warsaw Nothing

The fallout from the decision by Henning Berg to field a suspended player in the second league of Legia Warsaw's 3rd qualifying round tie with Celtic continued over the weekend, with Legia attempting to put a guilt trip on Celtic over their exit from the tournament.

First off, I sympathise with Legia to a certain extent. They thoroughly deserved to win the tie, having played exceptionally well in both matches, and they have lost their place in the tournament, and the potential £15-20m windfall that goes along with it, because of an administrative error.

That's as far as it goes for me. I feel sorry for them, but it's just tough. End of story.

UEFA's rules on fielding suspended players are crystal clear - if you put one on the pitch, you forfeit the match.

It doesn't matter if he was only on for a few minutes or even a few seconds.

It doesn't matter if you already have the match won when he comes on.

All that matters is that you have fielded a player who is banned from playing in that match.

In that situation, UEFA has no room for leeway. There is no range of sanctions open dependent on the severity of the breach, or how far the outcome of the match was affected. There is only one possible sanction, and that is the match is forfeited by a 0-3 scoreline.

It's easy to forget, especially given the inaccurate reporting surrounding the issue, that Legia were not expelled from the Champions League for fielding a suspended player.

That leads us to the hand-wringing over the "disproportionate" punishment. The punishment was actually entirely proportionate and any attempt to mitigate the forfeit of the 2nd leg with resort to, "the match was already won," or "it made no difference to the result," sends you straight down the Sandy Bryson route, where "sporting advantage" has to be determined before clubs are properly punished for fielding banned players.

That way lies a cheats' charter where clubs can afford to take a chance on fielding banned players, knowing that they could very possibly argue their way out of forfeiting the match, as it was obviously merely a simple administrative error, and the criteria for determining the punishment would be entirely subjective.

When we consider how hard done by Legia are, we need to remember that the moment they fielded a suspended player, they forfeited the match. It wasn't a punishment inflicted by a UEFA disciplinary panel, it was the consequence of fielding the suspended player.

Regardless of how well Legia played on the night, regardless of the minimal (or none at all) impact it had on the result, the match was forfeited by Legia, through their actions in fielding a suspended player.

It is as if the 0-2 defeat Celtic suffered on the night never happened. We actually won the match by a 3-0 scoreline because Legia forfeited the match by fielding a suspended player.

Never let it be forgotten that it was Callum McGregor's goal in Warsaw that earned us our place in the play off round.

Now Legia want us to give up our place in the play off because THEY made one almighty cock-up on the night.

What Legia did was sheer, unadulterated, gross incompetence.

If they didn't know the rules of the competition, no matter how obscure they may be, then that is entirely their own fault. Legia's co-owner should be looking at his own role in this fiasco rather than attempting to morally blackmail Celtic.

He presides over a shambolic, amateurish organisation that went into the Champions League completely ignorant of how to register its players correctly and ensure suspended players have served their suspension before using them.

It is not Celtic's responsibility to ensure Legia Warsaw, or any other opponent, know the rules of the competition.

Legia Warsaw now need to take responsibility for their own gross incompetence and stop trying to coerce Celtic into taking that responsibility for them.