New Zealand Football CEO Andy Martin confirmed on Monday the national body will be lodging a formal appeal with Oceania Football regarding the eligibility of Deklan Wynne for the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Papua New Guinea.
The New Zealand U-23 side were disqualified from the Olympic Qualifying tournament after Wynne was ruled to be ineligible for the competition after playing against Vanuatu in the semifinal. The Oly Whites were set to take on Fiji in the final, but instead had their semifinal win forfeited, with Vanuatu taking their spot in the finale last night.
Wynne - who was born in South Africa - was deemed to have failed to have met the Fifa regulations for a player born outside of his representative country.
Read more: Oly Whites: All you need to know
Having taken advice from Oceania Football Confederation on the rules for the competition and having received confirmation of eligibility of the squad from the Pacific Games Council in advance of the tournament, Martin said New Zealand Football will take up their right of appeal on the decision reached on Sunday.
"New Zealand Football has acted in good faith at all times and we would have expected any issues on player eligibility to have been raised in advance, through the process we were given, so that they could have been dealt with properly in a timely fashion," Martin said.
"Our lawyers are working on the appeal currently and are reviewing both the process followed and the OFC Disciplinary Committee's interpretation of the Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes and how this has been applied in similar cases."
