By Andrew Warshaw
June 26 – Fenerbahce, one of European football’s most fanatically followed clubs, have been left reeling after being handed a two-year ban by UEFA which has delivered on its pledge to clamp down hard on match-fixing.
The ban from European competition is the club’s second in three years, ruling them out of this season’s Champions League, and seems certain to cause a furious backlash from supporters.
The club will miss out not only on this coming season but on the next European competition for which they qualify. To rub salt in their wounds, UEFA’s disciplinary panel also banned them for a third season suspended for a probationary period of five years.
Besiktas, another of the Istanbul clubs, have also been banned, in their case for one season, in connection with the 2011 Turkish Cup final which they won on penalties.
Both clubs had their cases heard at a UEFA disciplinary hearing after European football’s governing body spent months gathering information.
Fenerbahce, second in the Turkish league last season, had been due to enter in the third qualifying round of the Champions League while Besiktas will drop out of the Europa League.
This is Fenerbahce’s second exclusion from European competition after they were thrown out of the 2011-12 Champions League by their own national federation while they were being investigated for match-fixing.
They had won the title the previous season with a 4-3 win over Sivasspor in their final match, one of a number of games investigated by the Turkish authorities.
A year ago, 93 people – including club officials, coaches and players – were charged in a civil trial which centred around Fenerbahce’s 2010-11 league-winning season. Club chairman Aziz Yildirim was sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly fixing six matches, but was released on appeal. He and Fenerbahce fans insisted that they had been set up by opponents – and still do.
Two months earlier, the Turkish Football Federation imposed bans of between one and three years on 10 players and officials but did not take action against any clubs.
The latest sanctions follow UEFA’s decision to scrap all statutes of limitations within its disciplinary system so it could persue cases of match fixing retrospectively – which is exactly what it has done.
Fenerbahce knew what would happen if found guilty – they issued a statement to that effect before this week’s UEFA hearing – but the verdict nevertheless represents a crippling blow and the club must now decide whether to accept their punishment or appeal, with the Champions League qualifying rounds fast approaching.
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