CELTIC could be handed a route back into the Champions League this season after UEFA opened an investigation into whether Legia Warsaw fielded an ineligible player in the teams' third qualifying round tie.
The Polish champions progressed comfortably to today's draw for the play-off round by beating Ronny Deila's side 4-1 in Warsaw and then 2-0 at Murrayfield in Wednesday night's return leg. The 6-1 aggregate loss equalled the worst two-legged scoreline in Celtic's history.
That left the Scottish champions awaiting today's Europa League play-off round draw but they could yet find themselves back in the Champions League after Legia released a statement on their website revealing that UEFA were looking into the appearance of Bartosz Bereszynski in the second leg in Edinburgh.
The 22-year-old defender was sent off last season against Apollon Limassol in Legia's final Europa League group game and it was thought he had served his three-game suspension when he didn't feature in either leg of the Poles' second qualifying round victory over St Patrick's Athletic of the Republic of Ireland, or in the first leg against Celtic in Warsaw. He then appeared as a substitute for the closing four minutes of the return match at Murrayfield.
It is understood, however, that the club did not register him with UEFA for the match against St Pat's and, if correct, it would mean his ban had not been fully served and he was ineligible to face Celtic.
The statement on the Legia website said: "The club announces that in relation to the second leg of the third qualifying round of the Champions League between Celtic FC and Legia Warsaw, UEFA has opened an investigation relating to the participation of Bartosz Bereszynski.
"The club has prepared relevant information and an explanation which will be sent to UEFA today. The result of the investigation will be made known immediately after its completion."
If UEFA found that Bereszynski was ineligible to play at Murrayfield, Legia would forfeit the second leg and Celtic would instead be awarded a 3-0 victory. That would be enough for them to progress to the Champions League play-off round courtesy of the away goals rule.
Celtic benefited from a similar scenario in 2011 when the Swiss side, Sion, were found to have fielded ineligible players in their 3-1 Europa League win over Neil Lennon's side. Sion were eliminated from the competition and Celtic took their place in the group stage.
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