Irate FIFA threatens to suspend Switzerland
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Shanghai Daily, December 18, 2011
FIFA threatened to suspend Switzerland from world football yesterday if its national association does not discipline litigious club FC Sion within one month.
If the suspension takes effect, Swiss champion FC Basel would be prevented from playing Bayern Munich in the Champions League round of 16. The first leg is scheduled for February 22 in Basel.
Basel advanced from its Champions League group ahead of Manchester United, which would logically be reinstated by organizer UEFA.
Switzerland's Football Association has a further incentive to meet FIFA's demand - it is scheduled to host Lionel Messi and Argentina in a February 29 friendly in Bern.
Swiss football leaders, including Basel Vice President Bernhard Heusler, met yesterday to consider the FIFA ultimatum forcing them to forfeit most of Sion's results this season by January 13.
"We are disappointed. But, in any case, we will do everything necessary to resolve the situation," Swiss FA President Peter Gillieron told reporters at a news conference in Geneva.
Swiss officials will seek a meeting with FIFA lawyers in Zurich next week to clarify what football's world governing requires from them.
Legal saga
Sion has breached football's rules in a legal saga that began in 2009 when FIFA imposed a one-year transfer ban for breaking transfer regulations in the signing of goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary.
Yesterday, FIFA criticized "the attitude of the club repeatedly trying to circumvent this decision in a legally abusive manner," in a statement issued after a meeting of its executive committee in Tokyo.
Sion's determination to fight football and legal authorities led it to launch a series of civil court actions against UEFA, which expelled it from the Europa League in September for fielding players that were signed during the transfer ban.
FIFA and UEFA were backed on Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which upheld UEFA's right to kick Sion out of the competition based on FIFA's transfer sanction. Sion refused to accept defeat, insisting it would challenge the decision in Switzerland's supreme court.
