MANCHESTER UNITED COULD be handed an eleventh-hour Champions League lifeline and a place in the tournament’s knockout stages by FIFA.
World football chiefs threatened today to suspend Switzerland from world football unless the national FA takes decisive disciplinary action in the long-running legal row involving FC Sion.
FIFA are demanding that Sion, who violated a one-year transfer ban imposed in 2009, forfeit most of this season’s domestic results by mid-January, the Associated Press reports.
If the Swiss FA fail to act by the deadline and FIFA follow through with the blanket punishment, it could see Swiss champions FC Basel dumped out of the last 16 of the Champions League — and Manchester United reinstated at their expense.
Basel’s 2-1 win over United last week saw them progress as Group C runners-up while Alex Ferguson’s side finished third, condemning them to the relative ignominy of Europa League football after Christmas.
But as the next best team in Group C, the Premier League champions could be reinstated if Basel were hit by the blanket ban. United would then face Bundesliga table-toppers Bayern Munich in February with a place in the competition’s quarter-finals at stake.
Another alternative would be to have Basel forfeit their game against Bayern, allowing the German side to progress without kicking a ball.
Sion signed six players during their transfer embargo, imposed after they violated transfer regulations in the signing of goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary in 2009.
The Swiss club were expelled from this year’s Europa League for fielding the ineligible players and FIFA are now insisting that they be punished domestically as well,
“All matches in which the relevant players participated shall be declared forfeit or three points shall be deducted respectively,” FIFA said. “Should this deadline not be respected, the Swiss FA will be automatically suspended from 14 January 2012 onwards.”
