A Very Brief History Of Sanctions
Football has long taken seriously anything which brought the game into disrepute and adversely affected the “level playing field” and the “integrity of the sport.”
For failure to properly register players the sanction has almost always been that the game in question is invalidated and a 3-0 win handed to the opposition. Prize money relative to that match has been withheld or reclaimed.
Even in cases where the offence is accidental, rather than deliberate, the consequence is usually the same; there is ample precedent at UEFA and, yes, even here in Scotland, which supports the assertion that this punishment is virtually automatic.
Issues around bribery and corruption have resulted in teams being stripped of trophies.
Relegations have taken place.
Bans on individuals involved are commonplace.
Even members of football’s governing agencies have been subjected to those punishments, such as in cases where referees have been paid or officials took part in covering up.
There are examples from Italy, Germany, Spain, France, England and elsewhere which support the notion that events which threaten the integrity of the sport can be punished even long after the period when they took place. Bryson’s ridiculous claim would not be supported anywhere in the football world and even if it were somehow accurate I doubt that it would cover any event where a club’s action had brought them into conflict with the law.
Where corruption and cheating has been found after the fact, clubs have been deducted points, banned from competitions, had titles taken from them, massive fines levied against them and persons involved as good as drummed out of the sport.
Rangers concealment of documents for a decade, their failure to properly comply with an inquiry set up to investigate that, the nature of the offence itself … all this stands up to one of the gravest offences against sporting integrity in European football history.
And because of that, this matter cannot merely be dealt with by Europe’s football authorities; it has to go beyond them, to someone who can get to the bottom of this on their behalf and recommend whatever sanctions seem appropriate to it.
