2007 Setanta Sports Cup

The Setanta Sports Cup 2007 is the 3rd staging of the cross-border cup competition that takes place between football clubs from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The final is scheduled to be played at Windsor Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 12 May 2007, and will be contested by Drogheda United and Linfield, the only two sides to have previously won the competition.

Shelbourne's withdrawal

The draw for the 2007 Setanta Cup competition was made on 7 December 2006 with the original competing teams being the identical ones to the previous year's competition. On 30 January 2007, however, Shelbourne announced that they were withdrawing from the competition for reasons relating to their financial troubles and the fact that they would be unlikely to field a team of players. Their place was given to the 2006 FAI Cup runners-up to Derry City, St Patrick's Athletic, despite the fact that the next best-placed in the previous season's league (Shelbourne's qualification route), who did not have a place in the Setanta Cup already, were Sligo Rovers. While it is likely that the organisers transferred Derry, who finished second in the league, into Shelbourne's empty slot, first in the league, for the purpose of official qualification and then accorded St Pat's qualification by way of the FAI Cup, this would have logically entailed Derry moving into Group 2 to fill Shelbourne's place, while St. Patrick's should compete in Group 1 in the place of the moved Derry. However, it is possible that for the purposes of the initial draw, teams were accorded lots on an alphabetical basis. Thus, it would follow that St. Patrick's would have been assigned the same lot as Shelbourne and would have, as a result, been drawn in the same slot anyway.

Group stage

The draw for this round was held 7 December 2006. The matches were played 26 February-17 April 2007.

Tie-breaking criteria

If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:

Teams that progressed to the Semi-Finals are indicated in bold type.

Teams eliminated from the Setanta Cup are indicated in italics.

Group A

Group B

(KEY: Pts= Points; Pld= Matches Played; W= Matches Won; D= Matches Drawn; L= Matches Lost; GF= Goals For; GA= Goals Against; GD= Goal Difference)

Semi-finals

The draw for the semi-finals was made by drawing the winners of Group A against the runners-up of Group B and vice-versa, with group winners having home advantage. There would be no replays if the matches were drawn; instead, extra time would decide winners immediately thereafter. If extra time did not decide the winners, a set of five alternating penalty kicks would decide winners.

Final

Similarly to the semi-finals, there will be no replay even if the match is drawn; instead, extra time will be used to decide the winners. If extra time fails to separate the two sides, the match will go to penalties. The 3rd Setanta Cup final will be played at Windsor Park and it will be the first Setanta Cup final to be played in Northern Ireland.

Damien Lynch
Tony Grant
Stephen Bradley
Shane Robinson
Stuart Byrne

Top scorers

External links

• Official Setanta Cup Site