FIFA have highlighted the incompetence of the SFA by confirming John Guidetti’s transfer to Celtic.
On Monday night Celtic completed the loan deal with Manchester City and sent the paperwork through to the SPFL and the SFA.
For reasons best known to themselves the SFA decided not to ratify the deal and spent most of Monday in talks with the SPFL following pressure from Celtic over the non-registration.
As an example of how other Associations work to help their members, while the SFA were cobbling together their story, the FA rubber stamped Radamel Falcao’s move to Manchester United and Tom Cleverley’s switch to Aston Villa although neither deal was completed by 11pm on Monday.
Announcing the Guidetti deal today a FIFA spokesman said: “After checking the documentation received and the information contained in the international transfer matching system managed by FIFA TMS, the Scottish Football Association was informed today that the envisaged loan deal may proceed.”
Unfortunately for Celtic the decision has come too late for the striker to be included in the club’s squad for the group stage of the Europa League.
Registration has never been a strength of the SFA despite having the highly experienced Sandy Bryson at the helm as well as one of the world’s greatest administrators, Campbell Ogilvie on call.
Last year Scottish clubs were hampered by having their transfer window close on a Saturday evening while across the world other associations gave their clubs till midnight on the Monday to complete their business.
So far there has been no comment from the SFA or suggestion of an investigation into how they ended up hampering Scotland’s only representative in European club football.