Celtic are only a part of the Europa League group stages because FC Sion fielded players that they apparently should not have signed. Over the summer, the Swiss side captured the signatures of six players even though UEFA and FIFA insisted they were still serving a one-year transfer embargo as punishment for the incorrect signing of Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary.
The Scottish Premier League giants were bettered on the pitch but were awarded two 3-0 victories following Sion’s decision to play three of the “Sion Six” in the second leg. Despite the ruling, FC Sion have continued to plead their innocence and fight for their right to still be competing in Europe. Celtic shouldn’t be in the Europa League.
Article 17 of FIFA’s Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players states that any player who signed a contract before the age of 28 can buy himself out of the contract three years after the deal was signed. If the player is 28 or older, the time limit is shortened to two years.
It was drafted in 1998 in response to a European Commission ruling that the football transfer system was quite the obstruction to players freedom of movement; especially when compared to other industries.
At its very core, the decision was supposed to help players avoid lengthy, exploitative contracts that tied them unhappily to a club. In truth, it means contracts have to be renegotiated every 18-24 months even if they were supposed to five or six years long upon signing.
Andy Webster, who walked out of Heart of Midlothian and joined Wigan Athletic in 2006, was the first player to “exploit” the rule and leave an unprotected contract. It was a closely watched incident by the entire world of football as the initial fears were that it would prove as momentous as the Bosman ruling of 1995.
Since it became football law in 2004, the number of players to make use the article to change clubs can be counted on a single hand. With the process requiring the player to prove a sufficient reason for leaving, the two clubs to agree a compensation package and all of the cases generally leading to lawyers being drafted in, utilising Article 17 is more work than it warrants.
In February 2008, Essam El-Hadary joined Sion from Egyptian powerhouse Al Ahly and pointed to Article 17 when people questioned how he had walked out on a contract that still had 18 months to run. The Swiss club were confident in their signing; in the player and the fine reputation he arrived with, as well as the legality of the move.
Unfortunately for both the club and their experienced signing, they forgot to read Article 16 of FIFA’s Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players. It states that a “contract cannot be unilaterally terminated during the course of a season”. Had El-Hadary waited three months and moved at the end of May, two years of appeals, lawyers submitting motions and more appeals would have been avoided.
As it was, in June 2010 - after a drawn out process that saw both Sion and El-Hadary holding up the decision with their complaints and petitions - FIFA finally dished out their punishment. As well as ruling upon fines for both the club and the player totalling just over $1.25 million (covering a transfer fee to Al Ahly for the goalkeeper and the legal costs of the case) the Swiss Super League club were banned from signing players for two transfer windows.
Sion, seemingly without consulting FIFA or UEFA in regards to the exact details of the ruling, assumed that as the ban was handed out in June, it started on July 1st 2010. The club sat on their hands through the summer transfer window of 2010 and the winter transfer window in 2011.
After a year of bringing in no additions to their squad, and a following an excellent season that saw them win the Swiss Cup, Sion got back into the transfer market this summer and signed six players. Unfortunately for them, FIFA had actually banned the club from signing any players in the January window of 2011 and the summer transfer window of 2011 (the most recent one). The “Sion Six” were ruled to have been wrongly signed by UEFA; FIFA and banned the new players from all competitions until January 1st 2012.
Sion didn’t need a second invitation to get back into court with the ruling bodies of football. They were immediately into a courtroom with a very simple argument: they had served their punishment immediately and, after doing nothing for two transfer windows, they became free to sign new players again this summer.
As Sion have argued in channels that aren’t recognised by FIFA, FIFA’s interpretation of their ban wouldn’t have actually equated to an actual ban of any substance. With FIFA enforcing the embargo from January 1st 2011, rather than July 1st 2010, Sion would have been able to use the summer transfer window to plan ahead for a year without transfer privileges. They could have “stock-piled” squad members and pre-empted the ban – done sufficiently, it would have rendered the ban completely ineffective.
Sion started the season by leaving out their new signings as their new court case remained unresolved but have now integrated all six into the playing squad following a decision by a Swiss court that stated that they were within their rights to play the “Sion Six”. FIFA completely ignored the ruling, as a mandate doesn’t allow clubs to settle footballing matters in civil courts.
FC Sion shouldn’t have been removed from the Europa League for playing the seemingly ineligible players. They served their ban as soon as it was handed out, rather than seven months later and, were this a British club, the conspiracy theorists would be out in full regalia. As it is, Celtic have benefited from a ridiculous decision by football’s governing bodies and have already been informed that they won’t be punished for their oversight.
On Monday UEFA submitted a number of contingency plans to a court in Vaud, the organisation’s home state in Switzerland. The plans outline a string of possible ways that FC Sion could be reinstated to this season’s Europa League. The move has to be seen as an admittance from Europe’s governing body that they aren’t supremely confident of winning the case that currently sits in front of the Court Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
CAS, as insisted by UEFA, will have a final say on the matter and make the final decision in regards to FC Sion and their participation in European this season.
Whether Group I becomes a five-team group or FC Sion are installed in a play-off with a “dropping down” Champions League side remains to be seen; but had UEFA and FIFA reviewed their ban in August, all of this could very well have been avoided.
Tags: Celtic, Europa League, FC Sion, UEFA
Plausible. Should be circulated.
Plausible, but not accurate. Sion signed Michael Dingsdag - who played very well in return leg against Celtic, as it happens - in the summer 2010 transfer window. So they didn’t ‘sit on their hands’. Curious, there is no mention of the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s damning verdict on the transfer that caused all the trouble. These independent adjudicators on such matters, rather than some adjunct of FIFA or UEFA, as Sion have attempted to suggest in their propoganda campaign. The same CAS, indeed, who had FIFA foaming with their judgement on article 17, which, incidentally, is not about players ‘buying out their contracts’ but the compensation they must stump up for breaching their contracts. In terms of Sion, CAS said the two transfer window sanction was fair and proper, but Sion did not respect that. The January 2011 transfer window was the only one they did not recruit players.
Thanks for a really interesting comment, I’m sure the author will agree when he sees it.
But I myself am curious. Why is it “curious” that something hasn’t been mentioned? Why is it not a simple or, perhaps, accidental omission?
What a ridiculous article, firstly how Sion could possibly not have known which two transfer windows the embargo covered when every other team in the country did? this article clearly outlines why Sion were rightly punished. It only raises questions as to why Sion are so arrogantly fighting for special treatment.
This article clearly outlines how Sion broke the rules and regulations in signing Essam, and how they were rightly punished for this infringement of the rules, then because they ASSUMED the embargo started from the transfer window FOLLOWING the current one instead of immediately is again testament to their own arrogance and stupidity.
The legitimacy of these players and the consequence of fielding them was made very clear to Sion, but again their arrogance outweigh anything else and they just did whatever they wanted. The only REAL question here is why all the other Swiss teams were punished for what has been from start to finish a case of Sion thinking they are bigger better and more important that world football or any of its rules.
Should Sion get reinstated or a financial compensation for this then it opens the doors for every other team to do as they please and ignore the rules, Celtic’s part in this whole sorry situation is really neither here nor there, as a life long Celtic fan i do NOT think we should be in this competition, yes we can argue all day about how the games would have gone had Sion played fair but at the end of the day we were just not good enough, we are however in the competition because Sion broke the rules, which by any definition is cheating. That said the result and Sions fate are nothing to do with Celtic and completely of their own doing.
I do also feel that this case should not still be rumbling on, how anyone can look at the whole Sion argument and agree with them is amazing, the rules are not surrounded in mystery or hidden, they are plain and simple and again EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THEIR COUNTRY KNEW so its clear they probably did also but as they think they are so big and so important that the rules everyone else plays by don’t need to apply to them, thats also why the start of their domestic season was in disarray as other Swiss teams refused to play them, articles like this that clearly support teams breaking the rules and doing what they want when they want without regard to anyone else are really not helpful
Its a difficult one but in my opinion rules are rules and FC Sion should be disqualified from the Europa League. Tough but fair.