So it looks like a victory for common sense after the Swiss club clearly broke Uefa and Fifa rules and fielded ineligible players in both legs of the Europa League tie against Celtic. In short FC Sion cheated, and knowingly cheated, and in spite of their attempts to circumvent football justice by appealing to just about every Swiss civil court they could find, they have been finally find guilty – and any further appeals would come after the Madrid v Celtic tie.
In truth though, as we reported at the time, the best way to have avoided this whole sorry situation would have been for FC Sion to have never been allowed to play in the Europa League against Celtic in the first place. They had broken the rules of football long before the tie took place and they only compounded their offence by fielding ineligible and therefore illegal players against Celtic in both legs.
The implications will be that despite their legal successes in other courts, FC Sion and their directors have bought the Swiss league and all those associated with it to a very low place and there should be repercussions for all Swiss football for allowing these clear rule breaches to continue and there has been much reported discontent with FC Sion from other clubs in their home league.
Not that the schism in Switzerland has been much reported by any Scottish or UK hacks apart from the well informed Videocelts blog. It was with an air of great reluctance that the Scottish media reported today’s ruling against Sion, and indeed it speaks volumes about the media that it was left to Celtic Football Club themselves and Tony Hamilton as @polishturnstile on Twitter to break the Celtic Europa victory via the web and social media.
For there is clearly no kudos for Scottish and UK journalists in breaking a positive Celtic story in the week of the run up to a Glasgow Derby game and especially when last night saw the inner circle of the press sharing an intimate Indian meal with Motherwell billionaire Craig Whyte as they attempt to shield him from the glare of being interrogated by any real journalists.
It would have been so consoling to the toothless Scottish hacks to have a nice juicy ‘Celtic out of Europa league again’ bone to suck on at this difficult time for Rangers and the Rangers media entourage. Sadly horrific dreams of administration and indigestion are to be the only hangover from Whyte’s last supper.
So Celtic can look forward to a Europa league campaign after all, and the fans can anticipate another Beach Ball Sunday if, that is, their opponents can field a team. All this at a time when the Celtic team showed their optimum form of the season overcoming a clueless Stuart McCall’s Motherwell outfit last weekend with some often breathtaking attacking football.
Because the other thing that the media entourage are not reporting is the obvious dissatisfaction and dissent among the Ibrox side most notably that of Jelavic who mysteriously seemed to discover an injury on his return to Glasgow having played a full and injury free game for Croatia last week – see my conversation with @CroatianSoccer on Twitter for more.
But it also looks like the normally well oiled media machine that surrounds Rangers in the week leading up to a Glasgow Derby has come well and truly unstuck as reports emerge tonight that former chief Martin Bain has secured the freezing of a further half million pounds of Rangers assets over fears of ‘insolvency’.
For Celtic there are only positives to be taken from today’s events as win, lose or draw against Atlético Madrid on Thursday it will be a rewarding experience for the young Celtic team and their still young manager to face more inventive opposition than they normally meet in the depressed SPL.
The outcome will be all the more rewarding too in other respects as the Euromillions from the campaign will be all the more welcome at this difficult time for Celtic’s poverty stricken opponents.
@the_eriugena chief reporter on Celtic and the media for @SixtySevenLive
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