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| Celtic reinstated to Champions League after Uefa punishes Legia Warsaw | Celtic reinstated to Champions League after Uefa punishes Legia Warsaw |
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| Celtic have been reinstated to the Champions League after Legia Warsaw were punished by Uefa for fielding an ineligible player. | |
| Legia won the third qualifying-round tie 6-1 on aggregate but brought on Bartosz Bereszynski for the last four minutes of their 2-0 second-leg victory at Murrayfield, while he was supposed to be serving a suspension following a red card for violent conduct in last season’s Europa League. | |
| Uefa on Friday punished the Polish club by awarding the game 3-0 to Celtic, meaning the Scottish champions progressed on away goals having lost the first match in Warsaw 4-1 – a game in which Ivica Vrdoljak missed two penalties. | Uefa on Friday punished the Polish club by awarding the game 3-0 to Celtic, meaning the Scottish champions progressed on away goals having lost the first match in Warsaw 4-1 – a game in which Ivica Vrdoljak missed two penalties. |
| Celtic will now play Maribor of Slovenia in the final qualifying round. | |
| “Legia have been sanctioned for fielding an ineligible player (article 18 of the Uefa Champions League regulations and article 21 of the disciplinary regulations). The match has been declared as forfeit meaning Legia Warsaw have lost the match 3-0,” a Uefa statement said. “As a consequence, Celtic have qualified for the Uefa Champions League play-offs on away goals (agg: 4-4) and Legia will compete in the Uefa Europa League play-offs. | |
| “In addition the player Bartosz Bereszynski has been suspended for one additional Uefa competition match for which he would be otherwise eligible. This suspension shall be added to the remaining two match suspension which the player still has to serve in accordance with the control and disciplinary body decision of 13 February 2014.” | |
| Bereszynski was sent off against Apollon in the final match of Legia’s Europa League campaign last season, earning a three-match suspension. He missed both legs of Legia’s tie against St Patrick’s in the second qualifying round and also sat out the 4-1 first-leg victory over Celtic. However, it has emerged that Bereszynski had not been registered in Legia’s squad for the second qualifying round, and so the matches did not count towards his suspension. | |
| Legia Warsaw have five days in which to lodge an appeal, and a statement on the Polish’s club website indicated they had requested Uefa’s reasoning for the ruling before making a decision. | |
| Celtic benefited from an ineligibility ruling during the 2011-12 season when they were reinstated into the Europa League group stages despite a qualifying defeat by Sion. The Swiss side were ruled to have fielded five ineligible players after breaching a Fifa transfer ban and failed to reverse the decision during a lengthy legal battle. |