LAUSANNE: The Court of Arbitration for Sport has slapped down a bid by Metalist Kharkiv to cling on in the Champions League despite the club’s guilt in a matchfixing scandal writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Earlier this week European federation UEFA expelled Metalist from the play-off round, in which they had been due to play Germany’s Schalke.

The Ukraine club, having already lost an appeal over the substantive original issue to CAS, went back to sport’s supreme court, pleading a change of ownership in mitigation.

Today, however, CAS rejected Metalist’s application for “provisional measures” and thus upheld the previous decision of the UEFA Appeals Body.

PAOK Salonika, whom Metalist had beaten in the third qualifying round, will thus be resurrected into the Champions League and provide the play-off round opposition for Schalke. The first leg is on August 21 in Gelsenkirchen.

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