The player in question was “cup-tied”. When filling out the registration form the player named what he believed to have been his previous club. We turned in the forms and after review we got the approval from USL and USSF. Between his time with his previous club and our club, the player was asked to play in a amateur team, which he did, for 3 games in November 2015. One of those games just happened to be a US Open qualifying match.
We were contacted by a reporter who had found information about one of those 3 matches letting us know that he would be running a article about us having an ineligible player on our team. After that information was out Charleston Battery appealed to USSF and after a brief call with our club we were told that the game was declared a forfeit in favor of the Charleston Battery.
Please know that in no way did we have any ill intentions or prior knowledge of this player’s ineligibility. If we had any prior knowledge of this we would have this player “sit out” the US Open Cup and continue to play on the PDL games.
We appealed. The appeal was denied.
So we will not be going to EverBank Field. We will not be playing Jacksonville Armada in the third round. A team that did not exist eight months ago had earned a tie against an NASL side in an NFL stadium, and now it is gone.
We are very proud of our team, including the player in question, for what how they played. Nobody can take that away.
Thank you all for you support.
