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Sports lawyers circle like vultures

The Financial Times sports team reports: ‘Our inbox has been bombarded with notes from law firms, who think the EFL has opened the floodgates to further litigation. Southampton players may look to sue the club for depriving them of potential promotion bonuses. Clubs that finished just outside the play-offs or who were relegated after losing to Southampton could also claim their league position was affected by cheating. Even Hull might well argue they should be promoted by default.’

The bizarre case also raises some more philosophical issues. It comes a few weeks after the Confederation of African Football decided to award the African Cup of Nations to Morocco, despite the team losing the final in extra time to Senegal. CAF judged that Senegal had forfeited the match by leaving the field of play for about 15 minutes in protest at a refereeing decision.

In other sports, changing the outcome of a competition after the fact is not unheard of. Doping cases have led to several Olympic champions being stripped of medals later on. At the Paris Olympics in 2024, there was even a medal ceremony for athletes who had “won” medals in the months and years following previous editions of the games.

In football, the tradition has typically been that past wrongs lead to future-facing sanctions. Transfer embargoes, docked points, fines, even relegation.

But as the law creeps ever more into football, could we be in a new era where past results are still open to revision? Crystal Palace won a place in the Europa League last year by winning the FA Cup, but had their spot stripped by Uefa due to rules on multi-club ownership. Similarly, Club León were booted out of the Club World Cup by Fifa before the tournament kicked off.

Football authorities seem to be taking a harder a line on the rules, and appear more willing to nullify sporting outcomes if they believe lines have been crossed. The advent of video-assisted refereeing has made it harder to celebrate goals in the moment. Could league titles and cup wins be next? 

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