FIFA last night ordered a crisis meeting in Zurich today after a Swiss
court overturned Marseille's European Cup ban and indicated that France
could be suspended from international competition.
Sepp Blatter, the FIFA general secretary, said that the meeting
represented a ''last chance for France.'' He said French federation
president Jean Fournet-Fayard had been summoned and told he must
pressurise Marseille chairman Bernard Tapie to withdraw his court
action.
Tapie's move to challenge Monday's UEFA decision to bar Marseille from
the European Cup over a bribery scandal threw the football world into
confusion when it was provisionally upheld by a Berne district court
yesterday.
Earlier, FIFA told the French federation that clubs could not take
sporting disputes to civil courts and reminded them that penalties for
breaking the rules included suspension from international competition.
Blatter said FIFA president Joao Havelange and UEFA's president and
general secretary Lennart Johansson and Gerd Aigner would be at the
meeting at FIFA's Zurich headquarters early today.
A Swiss official contacted Tapie before the court verdict was
announced and said that the Marseille boss had indicated he would be
withdrawing his legal action within half an hour.
''But it wasn't done,'' he said. ''That's why we are very surprised by
this situation.''
Tapie has insisted there was no proof that Marseille had tried to
bribe Valenciennes in a match, but five people have been placed under
investigation in the bribery affair. They include Marseille player
Jean-Jacques Eydelie and club general secretary Jean-Pierre Bernes, who
has since resigned.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article