Will Manchester United replace Basel in the Champions League? And what it will mean if the Swiss club are banned

COMMENT
By Keir Radnedge

The glitz, glamour and headlining TV images and photographs from the Zurich Kongresshaus on January 9 will doubtless be dedicated to Lionel Messi winning the FIFA Ballon d'Or yet again.

But the likelihood is that, behind the scenes, discussion in the secret corners of the corridors of power will not focus only on the brilliance of Barcelona but on the saga of Sion.

The confrontation matching the Swiss club against the national and international football authorities is threatening all sorts of chaos far beyond the transfer wrangle where this all began nearly four years ago.

For one thing, the international football establishment fears that a victory for Sion would set a precedent for clubs throughout Europe to run to CAS and the civil courts over a wide range of issues including, most notably, Michel Platini’s Financial Fair Play.

Last Saturday in Tokyo, Fifa president Sepp Blatter followed up a two-day meeting of his executive committee by saying that the Swiss football federation had until January 13 to bring to heel Sion and their argumentative president Christian Constantin.

If confirmed, such a ban would prevent Basel facing Bayern Munich in the Champions League second round. Though Uefa has refused to speculate, Fifa’s gesture of impatience prompted weekend suggestions in England that Manchester United might be reinstated in the Champions League.

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Last week the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected a plea by Sion that Uefa should reinstate the club in the current Europa League: Sion were expelled in late August for fielding players declared ineligible by Fifa, and at that stage by the Swiss league, against Celtic in the final qualifying round.

Sion’s legal advisers have indicated that the club will register an appeal against the CAS verdict in the Swiss federal court early next month.

Meanwhile sources close to the Swiss federation have even posed the suggestion that the SFV might appeal itself to CAS against Fifa’s threat of suspension. That would, at least, see the suspension suspended (!) pending a full hearing. Basel would then be able to play Bayern before a such a hearing could be organised.

Also, happily for the Swiss federation, the national team’s lucrative February 29 friendly against Argentina, in which Messi is contracted to appear barring injury, would have taken place. (As a side issue, the Sion case has prompted concerns about the functions and efficacy of CAS itself but that is a story for another day).

Constantin, according to his latest colourfully aggressive utterances, has no intention of giving up his fight. He has nothing to lose. Fifa and Uefa have a great deal to lose – and he knows it. Also, he does not believe that Fifa will suspend Switzerland. He thinks the world federation is threatening the federation unfairly; he has even defined it as administrative ‘terrorism.’

The issue goes back to the spring of 2008 when the Swiss club tried to sign the Egyptian goalkeeper Essam Al-Hadari while he was still under contract to Al-Ahly. It has rumbled on since then, becoming increasingly complex with every passing month so that now, remarkably, it has spawned no fewer than NINE court cases of one form or another.

Constantin has no intention of giving up his fight. He thinks the world federation is threatening the federation unfairly; he has even defined it as administrative 'terrorism'

If Fifa and Uefa learned anything from the Bosman Verdict it must have been that the consequences of defeat in the courts can be devastating to their power and authority. Compromise, however reluctant a consideration, is both a pragmatic but also an essential form of self-defence.

The next gathering of Fifa’s power-brokers and Swiss football officials will be at the Fifa Gala next month ... four days before the deadline to trigger international suspension for Switzerland.

Given all the awkward consequences - plus increasing Swiss political concern over the behaviour of locally-based sports bodies including Fifa - it would seem to make sense for Blatter, Platini & Co. to head off Sion and Constantin at the pass.

Or, at least, at the Zurich Kongresshaus.

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Keir Radnedge has covered every World Cup since 1966, analysing the international game for newspapers, magazines, TV and radio around the world