Madrid/Pamplona, Jul 25 (EFE).- Club Atlético Osasuna has confirmed this Tuesday that it will play in the 2023-2024 Conference League after the procedure before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has ended and that UEFA has considered it fit to participate in the competition.
“In view of the new evidence provided by the club in defense of its participation in the competition, UEFA has concluded that Osasuna was a victim of the events that occurred almost a decade ago and has valued the initiative carried out by the institution to clarify them,” the club announced.
Last June, the inspectors of the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Committee advised the expulsion of the Navarrese team from the next edition of the Conference League as a sanction for match-fixing in the 2013-14 season.
The club presented allegations before the Appeals Committee of the body, but their appeal was not taken into account and they went to the TAS, where “there has been a happy ending.”
Appeal before the draw
Osasuna recalls today on its website that on June 7, just three days after having managed to qualify for the Conference League, it was known that UEFA “had decided to expel them from the competition due to match-fixing involving different former club managers in 2014”.
It also points out that the appeal presented did not give results, so it was then decided to present allegations before the TAS, to which the documentation was sent on July 14, aware that the resolution should arrive soon, since the draw for the competition will be held on August 7.
Osasuna resigns from ordinary justice
Therefore, the Navarrese team will be present on the 7th in the Conference League playoff draw that will be held on August 24 and 31, since the decision of the UEFA decision and the ratification of the TAS “put an end, both in the ordinary courts and in sports justice, to the fight that the entity has maintained during the last two months in defense of its rights and those of its members.”
And it is that UEFA has decided to open a disciplinary file against the rojillo club for going to ordinary justice in this process, for which the club advances that “it will accept the penalty imposed by UEFA”, before which “it will not present an appeal”.
He has also expressed “his commitment to the highest body of European football not to raise issues of the sporting field to ordinary justice.”