UPDATE -  Looks like both Werder Bremen and Schalke have both decided to let Diego and Rafinha stay in China.

WTF is going on?

As our DP brother Ives already hipped you to, the Court of Arbitration of Sport ruled that clubs (ie. Barcelona, Shalke04 and Werder Bremen are the main clubs in the mess as they’re about to start Champions League Qualifiers) may hold out and / or recall players under contract back from China and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

This ruling goes against everything FIFA supposedly wanted, with Sepp Blatter citing the regard for the Olympic spirit being the most important thing for clubs, coaches and management to remember.

According to CAS Secretary General Matthieu Reebut the ruling was made because the Olympics are not set on FIFA’s Match Calendar as the main reason the 3 person panel ruled in favor of clubs.

Looking back at the original statements from the clubs and from FIFA, ones got to wonder if FIFA knew this was the way the chips were going to fall all along as it sure seemed like the clubs were confidant of the final ruling all along and Blatter was reduced to using the word “Spirit”. And in the bigger scheme of things, will FIFA ever make a change to it’s calendar considering you know the starting dates of the Olympics will never change.

Now the big question is which countries Delegation dropped the ball on properly registering players as “This decision does not affect the eligibility status of the players who have been validly entered by their national Olympic committee and who remain fully eligible to compete” in the Beijing Olympics, CAS said.

image via LHS