The UEFA Appeals Committee decided this Tuesday to ban Osasuna from the 2023-2024 Conference League, to which it was entitled due to its seventh place in the table. After the report was in favor of expelling the designated inspectors, the European organization’s appeals committee did not admit the Navarrese Club’s allegations. As a last resort, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne can be appealed to, but the precedents do not encourage optimism. In principle, the urgent procedure opened at the CAS must be completed before the draw for the competition, which is scheduled for August 7th. Should the decision of Switzerland’s highest sports court go against Osasuna’s interests, Athletic Bilbao in eighth place will be the one to take their place in the next Conference League.
đď¸ Braulio VĂĄzquez: “We deserve it on the field, the fans and the city. The year we accomplished was enormous and the damage is incalculable.â pic.twitter.com/yw0yM2Lelb
â CA OSASUNA (@Osasuna) July 4, 2023
According to sources familiar with the case, Osasuna’s allegations were mainly based on the fact that the current leadership was not practicing at the time of the match-fixing in the 13/14 season and several directors and two Betis players (IvĂĄn Amaya and Xavi Torres) were eventually convicted by the Supreme Court. Osasuna also adds in his defense that it was the club itself that denounced the matter as injured after coach Ăngel Vizcay recorded a confession in front of LaLiga president Javier Tebas and general manager Javier GĂłmez.
“The reasons why the Appeals Committee decided to exclude Osasuna will be communicated to the company in the coming days,” the UEFA statement continued. The Rojillo club reacted defiantly and harshly. “Osasuna does not share UEFA’s criteria or the investigation carried out into the case and regrets the wrong message that UEFA is sending to the world of football by punishing those who denounce corruption and prosecuting them in court.” Osasuna will continue to all him use the legal tools available to confront UEFA and put an end to what it sees as a serious violation of its rights.
The decision to ban Osasuna has sparked a difficult legal debate as the club has not been condemned as a legal entity. The point is to determine whether it is justified for a club that benefited from the determination to be excluded because only some of its leaders at the time were convicted and not the organisation.
The open debate is somewhat reminiscent of Barcelona’s as UEFA inspectors decided not to ban him from the next Champions League. Joan Laporta said that in his conversation with UEFA President Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin, he told him that they could not sanction them, partly because they had not yet been tried in Spain. According to the legal sources consulted, this thesis contradicts the spirit for which the article was drawn up in 2007 and for which the mere fact of having paid the Vice-President of the Technical Committee of Arbitrators âŹ7.3 million from 2001 until his resignation, may be grounds for exclusion.
In the gossip of European football, UEFA has once again raised the question of whether it is serving the weak or making big politics for the strong, as it was accused of at the time at PSG.
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