UEFA Eliminates Tottenham from Conference League

Tottenham Hotspur have been eliminated from the Europa Conference League after Uefa decided to award Rennes a 3-0 victory for the club’s cancelled meeting earlier this month.

Antonio Conte‘s men were due to play the French side in their final group match on December 9th but the game was called off due to a Covid-19 outbreak in the Spurs squad.

Tottenham had been lying third in Group G of the inaugural edition of the competition and would have needed to beat Rennes in order to overtake Vitesse Arnhem and qualify for the play-off round.

However, Uefa have now ruled that a 3-0 will be awarded to Rennes, meaning that the North London outfit’s European campaign is over.

As per the BBC, Uefa ‘regard the tie as forfeited by Tottenham Hotspur FC, who is therefore deemed to have lost the match 0-3 in accordance with Annex J.3.1 to the Regulations of the UEFA Europa Conference League (2021-22 Season)’.

The news of Tottenham’s elimination from Europe’s third-tier competition is likely to be met with mixed feelings among the club’s supporters.

On the one hand, it represented an opportunity for Spurs to win their first trophy since 2008 and their first continental title since their Uefa Cup success in 1984.

Even though they had already lost two matches in the group prior to the scheduled Rennes match, they would have been among the favourites to lift the trophy had they made it through to the knock-out stage, particularly with the trophy-winning experience of Conte to fall on.

On the other hand though, having no European competition to contend with in the spring will mean less fixture congestion as the club looks to seal a top four place and a return to the Champions League for the first time since 2019/20.

On Sunday, Tottenham continued their improvement under Conte by putting in an impressive performance in a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool.

Spurs remain undefeated in the Premier League under the Italian and have climbed from ninth in the table to seventh since he took over from Nuno Espirito Santo last month.

This is despite having three games postponed due to weather and the aforementioned Covid-19 issues around the squad. They now sit six points behind arch-rivals Arsenal in fourth, albeit with three games in hand.

December 20, 2021