Fairplay to Liverpool - Liverpool should play in the Champions League next season

Liverpool Football Club Champions League Champions

Champions League Petition

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Liverpool have called on Uefa to let them defend the trophy they won in a penalty shoot-out against AC Milan in Istanbul on Wednesday.

	Date: 08/07/2005 11:53:00

Thank You for your Support	Date: 13/06/2005 15:59:00
Now that UEFA has reached the correct decision of allowing Liverpool FC the chance to defend their Champions League title, it is time for the Fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk campaign to draw to a close. Below are just some of the comments that we have received from fans that contacted us during the campaign and some of the key statistics. “Thank you so much for allowing us to have our say. Great result today” Gill Bacon “On behalf of Duck And Cover I would like to thank all involved in the organisation and success of the Fair Play To Liverpool campaign. We are extremely proud to sponsor the site and would like to thank everyone that signed the petition. It is satisfying to see football fans being given a chance to put their point across and we are certain the campaign contributed towards the factors behind UEFA's decision. Congratulations on your success!” Sushil Shah Duck And Cover Clothing Ltd Signatures 42,718 Hits 219,000 Countries 175 United Kingdom 22,000 Abroad 20,000 Liverpool FC 28,000 Manchester United 1,200 Arsenal 600 Manchester City 150 AC Milan 120

Liverpool get in Champions League	Date: 10/06/2005 12:02:00
Latest news from BBC.co.uk Liverpool have been given the chance to defend their Champions League crown after Uefa handed them a place in the first qualifying round for next season. The Reds beat AC Milan in last season's final but, because they finished out of the Premiership's top four, were not guaranteed entry in 2005-2006. Uefa's executive committee changed its rules on Friday to allow Liverpool in. But Liverpool will get less television money than the other Premiership teams should they reach the group stages. Even so, if the Anfield club reach the lucrative group stages any other English teams involved - from Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Everton - will still get less money than they would have done. Spokesman William Gaillard admitted splitting the pot five ways rather than four will be "a burden on the other English-based clubs". Liverpool will also get no "country protection" which means if they progress through the qualifying stages they could face Everton or Manchester United - who enter at the third qualifying round. If the Reds make it through to the group stages, they could be drawn to face Chelsea, who they beat in the semi-finals last season, or Arsenal. But first Rafael Benitez's men must face a first qualifying round tie, with the first leg being played on 12 or 13 July and the second on 19 or 20 July. LIVERPOOL'S FIXTURE CONGESTION Champions League 12-13 July: 1st round, 1st leg 19-20 July: 1st round, 2nd leg 26-27 July: 2nd round, 1st leg 2-3 Aug: 2nd round, 2nd leg 9-10 Aug: 3rd round, 1st leg 23-24 Aug: 3rd round, 2nd leg Pre-season 16 July: v Bayer Leverkusen 22 July: FC Cologne 27 July: Shimizu S-Pulse 30 July: Kashima Antlers Super Cup 26 Aug: v CSKA Moscow That means they will now probably have to cancel scheduled friendlies against Bayer Leverkusen and Cologne. And if successful in the first qualifying round, they will probably also have to cancel a pre-season tour of Japan, where they are due to play Shimizu S-Pulse and Kashima Antlers. Uefa chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson told BBC Radio Five Live the decision by the 14-man executive committee was unanimous. "Unanimous means that everybody is supporting it. By definition, that is also the case here. "There were no discussions actually on where they should enter the competition because everybody was of the opinion they should be given the opportunity but they have to start from the beginning. "They could not be allowed to get into the 32 for example." But while there is joy for Liverpool, there has been disappointment for Manchester City. The Uefa Cup spot which Liverpool had earned for finishing fifth in the Premiership will not transfer to another English club so City, who would have been next in line, will not be in Europe. Uefa insists the saga which has dogged it since Liverpool finished fifth domestically and then won the Champions League will never be repeated. "The Uefa executive committee decided to amend the regulations for the future editions of the Champions League, so that the holders will have the right to defend their title and therefore qualify automatically," said a statement on the organisation's website. The new system is in marked contrast to 2000, when Real Madrid won the Champions League but finished outside of Spain's qualification positions. On that occasion fourth-placed Real Zaragoza were relegated to the Uefa Cup.

A Big Thank You	Date: 07/06/2005 08:42:00
FairplaytoLiverpool.co.uk would like to thank everybody who has taken the time to sign the petition. After 8 days on line have over 36,000 signatures to the petition, which represents a fantastic show of support for the campaign. We would particularly like to thank non Liverpool fans who have signed the petition for their support. To date we have had fans of every English Premier League Team and many Football League Clubs. Further a field fans from all corners of the globe have expressed support by signing the petition.

A Big Thank You	Date: 07/06/2005 08:42:00
FairplaytoLiverpool.co.uk would like to thank everybody who has taken the time to sign the petition. After 8 days on line have over 36,000 signatures to the petition, which represents a fantastic show of support for the campaign. We would particularly like to thank non Liverpool fans who have signed the petition for their support. To date we have had fans of every English Premier League Team and many Football League Clubs. Further a field fans from all corners of the globe have expressed support by signing the petition.

Uefa close to Reds Euro decision - From BBC.co.uk	Date: 07/06/2005 08:21:00
Liverpool are set to find out in the next few days whether they will be in next season's Champions League. The Reds are the current holders after beating AC Milan in May but have not qualified to defend their crown after finishing fifth in the Premiership. "Yes, hopefully," Uefa director of communications William Gaillard told the BBC Today programme when asked if a decision could be made in a few days. Uefa want to resolve the issue before a 17 June Executive Committee meeting. Gaillard stressed that European football's governing body did not want to "clog" up the meeting with a debate over Liverpool's inclusion in the Champions League. There is a lot of sympathy for Liverpool's plight - at the same time we have rules William Gaillard He added: "It will depend on many telephone calls and the issue being discussed thoroughly with the executive committee members." Liverpool won this year's final in dramatic fashion when they came back from 3-0 down to win 3-2 on penalties. Real Madrid won the competition in 1999/2000 but finished the league season in fifth. But they were allowed to defend their title after the Spanish FA decided that Real Zaragoza, who had finished fourth in La Liga, would be relegated into the Uefa Cup. "There is a lot of sympathy for Liverpool's plight, at the same time we have rules," said Gaillard. "You strike a compromise between the sympathy and the rules. "The rule was applied five years ago in Spain, replacing the fourth-placed team with the winners of the Champions League. "So there is a precedent. At the same time we understand that in England - and probably outside, given the way they won the title - it provoked a lot of sympathy. "It is not just common sense, not as easy as it sounds because it may have an influence on other clubs. "It's important we get a consensus from our executive committee on the matter before proceeding."

Uefa close to Reds Euro decision - From BBC.co.uk	Date: 07/06/2005 08:21:00
Liverpool are set to find out in the next few days whether they will be in next season's Champions League. The Reds are the current holders after beating AC Milan in May but have not qualified to defend their crown after finishing fifth in the Premiership. "Yes, hopefully," Uefa director of communications William Gaillard told the BBC Today programme when asked if a decision could be made in a few days. Uefa want to resolve the issue before a 17 June Executive Committee meeting. Gaillard stressed that European football's governing body did not want to "clog" up the meeting with a debate over Liverpool's inclusion in the Champions League. There is a lot of sympathy for Liverpool's plight - at the same time we have rules William Gaillard He added: "It will depend on many telephone calls and the issue being discussed thoroughly with the executive committee members." Liverpool won this year's final in dramatic fashion when they came back from 3-0 down to win 3-2 on penalties. Real Madrid won the competition in 1999/2000 but finished the league season in fifth. But they were allowed to defend their title after the Spanish FA decided that Real Zaragoza, who had finished fourth in La Liga, would be relegated into the Uefa Cup. "There is a lot of sympathy for Liverpool's plight, at the same time we have rules," said Gaillard. "You strike a compromise between the sympathy and the rules. "The rule was applied five years ago in Spain, replacing the fourth-placed team with the winners of the Champions League. "So there is a precedent. At the same time we understand that in England - and probably outside, given the way they won the title - it provoked a lot of sympathy. "It is not just common sense, not as easy as it sounds because it may have an influence on other clubs. "It's important we get a consensus from our executive committee on the matter before proceeding."

UEFA Letter	Date: 06/06/2005 18:13:00
Below is a copy of a letter that to be sent to UEFA. Fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk, is an online petition website that is calling on UEFA to allow Liverpool FC the opportunity to defend their Champions League Title. This website was created and published in just one day and already has received, in a single week, nearly 200k hits and 35,000 signatures to the petition. Already, we have enjoyed T.V. coverage from Sky Sports News and they have advised us, that they will broadcast the petitions presentation. Furthermore BBC 5 Live broadcasted details of Fairplaytoliverpool on their lunchtime edition. We are now in the process of getting Ex-Players to sign up to the campaign. However, we feel that this is only just the beginning. You will notice in the Our Mission Section, that we have translated the Mission into a number of languages already, and more will follow, including, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Finish, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Japanese etc. To visit the site please click on www.fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk You may also be interested to know that we are now on the official Liverpool FC website and have appeared on numerous online chat rooms and web forums. One of the pleasing aspects of the campaign is that it has received support from a wide variety of sources. In England fans of every Premier League Team and many Football League Clubs have joined the campaign. Further afield fans from all corners of the globe have expressed support. I hope that this groundswell of support in such a short period of time will help persuade you of the validity of our campaign and the strength of feeling there is amongst football fans around the world. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss this further on either 01606 40540 or 07818 046066. regards Tom Smith

UEFA Letter	Date: 06/06/2005 18:13:00
Below is a copy of a letter that to be sent to UEFA. Fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk, is an online petition website that is calling on UEFA to allow Liverpool FC the opportunity to defend their Champions League Title. This website was created and published in just one day and already has received, in a single week, nearly 200k hits and 35,000 signatures to the petition. Already, we have enjoyed T.V. coverage from Sky Sports News and they have advised us, that they will broadcast the petitions presentation. Furthermore BBC 5 Live broadcasted details of Fairplaytoliverpool on their lunchtime edition. We are now in the process of getting Ex-Players to sign up to the campaign. However, we feel that this is only just the beginning. You will notice in the Our Mission Section, that we have translated the Mission into a number of languages already, and more will follow, including, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Finish, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Japanese etc. To visit the site please click on www.fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk You may also be interested to know that we are now on the official Liverpool FC website and have appeared on numerous online chat rooms and web forums. One of the pleasing aspects of the campaign is that it has received support from a wide variety of sources. In England fans of every Premier League Team and many Football League Clubs have joined the campaign. Further afield fans from all corners of the globe have expressed support. I hope that this groundswell of support in such a short period of time will help persuade you of the validity of our campaign and the strength of feeling there is amongst football fans around the world. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss this further on either 01606 40540 or 07818 046066. regards Tom Smith

The Campaign Grows	Date: 02/06/2005 17:30:00
The Fairplaytoliverpool campaign has, after less than one week, started to gather incredible momentum. Already we have enjoyed T.V. Coverage from Sky Sports News last Saturday afternoon, and they have advised us, that they will broadcast the Petition Presentation on the 17th June. BBC 5 Live broadcasted at lunchtime on Tuesday of this week and furthermore a number of Newspapers have already taken the story. The Website was launched last Saturday morning, 28/05/05 at 10.00 pm, and it has already achieved over 4,000 signatures. However, we feel it is only just the beginning, as we will be communicating with all the Football Fans Forums on the Internet, around Europe and beyond the campaigns mission. We have now also created a new section called famous signatures, highlighting comments from famous people who believe in the campaign and who wish to endorse it. These people may be players, ex players and managers from all clubs around football. The first signatures added are those of Liverpool legend Tommy Smith and England International Peter Barnes. This will no doubt give, www.fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk even more credibility than it has already gained. It will also send a very positive message to all football fans who believe in fair play, and those bureaucrats in Switzerland, who will have to sit up and take notice, and make a positive decision in Liverpool Football Club’s favour.

The Campaign Grows	Date: 02/06/2005 17:30:00
The Fairplaytoliverpool campaign has, after less than one week, started to gather incredible momentum. Already we have enjoyed T.V. Coverage from Sky Sports News last Saturday afternoon, and they have advised us, that they will broadcast the Petition Presentation on the 17th June. BBC 5 Live broadcasted at lunchtime on Tuesday of this week and furthermore a number of Newspapers have already taken the story. The Website was launched last Saturday morning, 28/05/05 at 10.00 pm, and it has already achieved over 4,000 signatures. However, we feel it is only just the beginning, as we will be communicating with all the Football Fans Forums on the Internet, around Europe and beyond the campaigns mission. We have now also created a new section called famous signatures, highlighting comments from famous people who believe in the campaign and who wish to endorse it. These people may be players, ex players and managers from all clubs around football. The first signatures added are those of Liverpool legend Tommy Smith and England International Peter Barnes. This will no doubt give, www.fairplaytoliverpool.co.uk even more credibility than it has already gained. It will also send a very positive message to all football fans who believe in fair play, and those bureaucrats in Switzerland, who will have to sit up and take notice, and make a positive decision in Liverpool Football Club’s favour.

A personal plea to Lennart Johansson	Date: 02/06/2005 17:08:00
Below is a copy of the correspondence sent by Les Lawson, Secretary of the Merseyside Branch of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club, to Lennart Johansson of Uefa. Dear Mr. Johansson I would like you to consider the following points when you sit down to decide if Liverpool Football Club will be allowed to defend their trophy in the 2005 / 2006 Champions League. The first point is regarding England having 5 teams in the Champions League next season. I would answer this point by saying that Liverpool would be UEFA's representatives in the 2005 / 2006 Champions League, as we are your Champions. To quantify this, I would like to point out that we will be representing UEFA in both the Super Cup and the World Club Championships next season. Therefore if we are food enough to represent UEFA in those competitions then we are good enough to represent UEFA in the Champions League as we are UEFA Champions. My second point is to try and give some balance as to why Liverpool finished in 5th place in the Premier League. As a successful club we reached 2 cup finals last season. We also played every possible match in the Champions League. Although we lost in our first match (3rd round of the FA Cup), we still played a total of 60 matches in all competitions, compared to Everton who played 43. That is not a level playing field and it would appear that we would be penalised for being successful. The other message that this would send out in the future is that if another team found themselves in a similar position to what we were in, and were fighting for the final Champions League Place in their National League as well as in the latter stages of the Champions League, you might find that clubs would play weaker teams in the Champions League, thus saving their best players for their National League, thus relegation the Champions League to a lower status than National League's. This cannot be right as the Champions League is the biggest club competition in the World. I hope you can see the point's that I am trying to make, and I hope you will make the correct decision for the good of World and European Football and allow the European Champions Liverpool Football Club the right to defend their trophy in the 2005 / 2006 Champions League. You'll Never Walk Alone/ LES LAWSON

A personal plea to Lennart Johansson	Date: 02/06/2005 17:08:00
Below is a copy of the correspondence sent by Les Lawson, Secretary of the Merseyside Branch of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club, to Lennart Johansson of Uefa. Dear Mr. Johansson I would like you to consider the following points when you sit down to decide if Liverpool Football Club will be allowed to defend their trophy in the 2005 / 2006 Champions League. The first point is regarding England having 5 teams in the Champions League next season. I would answer this point by saying that Liverpool would be UEFA's representatives in the 2005 / 2006 Champions League, as we are your Champions. To quantify this, I would like to point out that we will be representing UEFA in both the Super Cup and the World Club Championships next season. Therefore if we are food enough to represent UEFA in those competitions then we are good enough to represent UEFA in the Champions League as we are UEFA Champions. My second point is to try and give some balance as to why Liverpool finished in 5th place in the Premier League. As a successful club we reached 2 cup finals last season. We also played every possible match in the Champions League. Although we lost in our first match (3rd round of the FA Cup), we still played a total of 60 matches in all competitions, compared to Everton who played 43. That is not a level playing field and it would appear that we would be penalised for being successful. The other message that this would send out in the future is that if another team found themselves in a similar position to what we were in, and were fighting for the final Champions League Place in their National League as well as in the latter stages of the Champions League, you might find that clubs would play weaker teams in the Champions League, thus saving their best players for their National League, thus relegation the Champions League to a lower status than National League's. This cannot be right as the Champions League is the biggest club competition in the World. I hope you can see the point's that I am trying to make, and I hope you will make the correct decision for the good of World and European Football and allow the European Champions Liverpool Football Club the right to defend their trophy in the 2005 / 2006 Champions League. You'll Never Walk Alone/ LES LAWSON

Liverpool fans celebrated their team's return	Date: 27/05/2005
Thousands of Liverpool fans celebrated their team's return home on Thursday after their thrilling UEFA Champions League final win over Milan. The streets of Liverpool were packed with supporters as they welcomed home the new European champions following their penalty shoot-out success against Milan. The five-times winners of Europe's premier competition took part in an open-top bus tour around the city after arriving at John Lennon airport earlier on Thursday afternoon. An estimated 750,000 fans have lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the players and the famous trophy. Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard, who lifted the trophy in Istanbul, paid tribute to the fans and insisted the victory over Milan was the greatest moment of his career to date. "Last night was the best moment of my career," enthused Gerrard. "I just can't describe how good it felt to get my hands on that European Cup for the Liverpool fans. It was just the best feeling ever. "The supporters are absolutely fantastic. The way they came out and backed us, and the noise they made, was just unbelievable." Reds boss Rafa Benitez admitted he had never seen scenes like he had witnessed in the streets as delirious supporters greeted his winning team on their return home. "The Liverpool supporters are the best in the world," said Benitez. "In Valencia the fans would come onto the streets after we'd won a trophy but it wasn't anything like this. "This is extra special for me tonight because my wife and daughters are with me on the bus. It's a great, great night and I'm so proud."

Liverpool fans celebrated their team's return	Date: 27/05/2005
Thousands of Liverpool fans celebrated their team's return home on Thursday after their thrilling UEFA Champions League final win over Milan. The streets of Liverpool were packed with supporters as they welcomed home the new European champions following their penalty shoot-out success against Milan. The five-times winners of Europe's premier competition took part in an open-top bus tour around the city after arriving at John Lennon airport earlier on Thursday afternoon. An estimated 750,000 fans have lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the players and the famous trophy. Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard, who lifted the trophy in Istanbul, paid tribute to the fans and insisted the victory over Milan was the greatest moment of his career to date. "Last night was the best moment of my career," enthused Gerrard. "I just can't describe how good it felt to get my hands on that European Cup for the Liverpool fans. It was just the best feeling ever. "The supporters are absolutely fantastic. The way they came out and backed us, and the noise they made, was just unbelievable." Reds boss Rafa Benitez admitted he had never seen scenes like he had witnessed in the streets as delirious supporters greeted his winning team on their return home. "The Liverpool supporters are the best in the world," said Benitez. "In Valencia the fans would come onto the streets after we'd won a trophy but it wasn't anything like this. "This is extra special for me tonight because my wife and daughters are with me on the bus. It's a great, great night and I'm so proud."