Court of Arbitration for Sport, Legia Warsaw & Marta Ostrowska

BAD LOSERS Legia Warsaw have lost their battle for compensation from UEFA for being thrown out of the Champions League qualifiers last year after fielding an ineligible player in the second leg of the qualifying round against Celtic in Edinburgh. 

UEFA have announced that  the Court of Arbitration for Sport has dismissed the Polish champion’s demand for 1,854,385€ compensation.

UEFA had no choice but to follow the rules after Legia introduced Bartosz Bereszynski as a very late substitute at Murrayfirld when he was still serving a three-match suspension.

Celtic were given a 3-0 win and subsequently went through to the next qualifying round, where they lost to Malibor, during some testing times for new manager Ronny Deila.

Initially Legia tried to blame Celtic, accusing the club of not returning a telephone call and demanding that Celtic should step aside – even though this was not in Celtic’s gift to do so.

Both UEFA and the Celtic board will this morning feel that they have been vindicated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. This mistake was made by a lady named Marta Ostrowska who lost her job as a result of the substitution error. We suggested at the time that those blaming UEFA, Celtic and even Ms Ostrowska should perhaps look at themselves.

Here’s a little feature we ran on Marta in CQN Magazine at the time…

Marta Ostrowska –  Profesjonalizm 100%

Profesjonalizm 100% – the way Marta described herself on Facebook.

Maybe not 100% Marta. 

As we all know Marta Ostrowska was the Legia Warsaw administrator who made the mistake of including Bartosz Bereszynski, their suspended player in the squad at Murrayfield, having not registered him against St Pats in the previous round or in the first leg against Celtic in Warsaw. As a result if this mistake Marta has been fired by Legia Warsaw.

Marta made a mistake – no doubt about that. But where were the systems in place at Legia Warsaw to prevent such a catastrophic error occurring with a potential loss to their club running into tens of millions of euros?

The Legia Warsaw directors, who were busy shouting and bad mouthing Celtic in the aftermath of their elimination from the Champions League qualifiers, should maybe look at themselves. Their systems failed. Dariusz Mioduski, the chairman of Legia Warsaw, should look at his own failings. It was very easy to blame Celtic (who did nothing wrong), blame UEFA (who simply applied the rules) and then blame a member of staff who took up the post in 2013.

The reason Legia Warsaw were eliminated from the Champions League Qualifiers is down to Mioduski and his board – not Celtic, UEFA or even the unfortunate Ms Ostrowska.

In all of this one thing has emerged – Legia Warsaw – 0% profesjonalizm.

Meanwhile there will always be a very warm welcome at Celtic Park for Marta…