Sion have been banned from UEFA competition for two years after falling foul of UEFA licencing regulations.
The Swiss side owed French Ligue 2 side Sochaux €950,000 (£820,000) following the signing of Ishmael Yartey and although the fee has since been settled it was completed after the Swiss FA had approved the licence on 31 March 2017.
An audit by Deloitte ordered by UEFA examined how the Swiss FA dealt with the licence application and discovered that the transfer fee was paid 10 weeks too late.
On 3 November 2017, Deloitte issued their final compliance audit report (the “Deloitte report”) for the attention of the CFCB Investigatory Chamber. In their report, the independent auditors indicated the existence of an overdue payable of FC Sion amounting to €950,000 towards another football club (FC Sochaux) as at 31 March 2017 and resulting from a transfer undertaken by the Club prior to 31 December 2016. The Deloitte report also confirmed that the total amount of €950,000 had been paid by FC Sion to FC Sochaux on 7 June 2017.
As well as the two year ban Sion were fined €235,000 (£203,000) even though they lost out in the third qualifying round for the Europa League, missing out on the payout for reaching the group stage.
In September 2017 Stewart Regan referred the licence awarded to Rangers (IL) in 2011 to the Compliance Officer of the SFA after it had gone public that Rangers (IL) owed HMRC £2.8m at the time of being granted a licence for the 2011/12 season. No comment or decision has since been made.
Ally McCoist’s side crashed out of both the Champions League and Europa League at the first stage with defeats from Malmo and Maribor.
