Was told by a non-city supporting QC that we would stand little chance of that unless we had applied for a suspension of the ban and it hadn't been granted. As we never applied for relief the issue was moot in the end.
The point was that UEFA rushed the punishment through, dropping their demand for a load of related emails that might have helped prove their case. The reason given for our failurte to supply them was that we'd have to go through all our emails to see which related to it, and that could take an inordinate amount of time. UEFA could have said they would wait until we did so and CAS criticised them for not doing so but agreeign to drop their demand to ensure the case was heard in a timely manner. But to do that would have meant postponing any punishment until we'd done that and they'd examined the emails, meaning thwy'd have had to let us play in next season's CL.
So the question has to be, why were UEFA seemingly more interested in rushing this case through prior to next season's CL than actually getting the evidence they thought they needed to nail us? It would have been no skin off their nose to let us play in the CL for another season, knowing they were safe from any legal action and they they could be on far more solid ground to prove their case. The answer is surely that UEFA weren't worried about the consequences to them, but that someone in the PL was worried about the consequences to them if 5th place became available for CL qualification.
