Carniny Rangers withdraw from Junior Shield final in player ineligibility issue

CARNINY Rangers have withdrawn from the County Antrim Junior Shield final in a player ineligibility issue.

The Ballymena Saturday Morning League champions had been due to play local rivals Harryville Homers in an historic all-Ballymena final of the competition on Wednesday, May 2.

Now, however, Carniny have withdrawn from the competition after discovering that one of their players played in an intermediate status final in the 2006-7 season, thereby contravening rule 9c of the Junior Shield rules which state that a player who has played in an intermediate final within the last five seasons.

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In a statement, Carniny manager Robert Young said: “At no stage of the competition did myself or anyone else at our club knowingly select a player who we knew to be ineligible.

“This has not been an easy decision to come to but in my mind if we are to win this competiton we will do so having played by the rules,” added Young.

An emergency meeting of the County Antrim Junior Shield committee is likely to take place to determine the outcome of the situation but it appears likely at this stage that Carniny’s semi-final opponents Valley Rangers will be reinstated to take on Harryville Homers in the final.

For more on this developing story, check the Ballymena Times website and see next week’s paper.

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