The BAS (Belgian Arbitration Court) just made their final judegement public.

It is a ruling about the match fixing scandal of 2 seasons ago, when KV Mechelen tried to buy the match against Waasland-Beveren. The BAS already spoke out last week that due to a wrong wording in the regulation of the Belgian Football association.
Due to this it was impossible to force a relegation back to the Proximus League (Belgian Second Division).

In this final judgement, the BAS declared KV Mechelen guilty of Match Fixing. As a result it will exclude KV Mechelen for one season from European Football and from the Belgian Cup.
The newly promoted KV Mechelen did win the Belgian cup last year and due to this they were automatically played for the group phase of the Europa League.

The Belgian Football Association will try to make sure that Belgium still will get the 5 European tickets it is entitled to, which will be hard because the first team (Antwerp) will have to play already next week.

Due to this ruling the Belgian European tickets would be as followed:

• Group Phase Champions League: KRC Genk
• Qualification Champions League: Club Brugge
• Group Phase Europa League: Standard (in stead of KV Mechelen)
• Qualification Europa League: Antwerp
• Qualification Europa League: AA Gent

My opinion

It is good that there is finally a final verdict of the BAS. And it is good to see that KV Mechelen will not get away complety from the match fixing attempt.
To bad, due to a stupid wording in the regulations, it is impossible to relegate KV Mechelen back to the second division.
KV Mechelen cannot appeal anymore with a Belgian Sport court, there only option is to go a civil court.

The punishment is light, in my opinion too light. The possible option of points deduction or a fine are not used.
I do think that for sure the first option, a point deduction would have been a correct ruling also.

I don't think that KV Mechelen will try to use an appeal via a civil court. For them the most important thing was that they could start in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League without points deduction. I do think that they can life with the fact that they won't be allowed to play in the Europa League, it is a small sacrifice compared to a potential relegation.

Also an appeal via a civil court could result in refusal to play in the Belgian competition. In the regulations of the Pro League it is clearly stipulated that this action may result into this saction.

It hope this will end the saga, still I do feel that they got away to easy! I also hope that Beerschot will not try another attempt to replace KV Mechelen in the Jupiler Pro League!

cheers,
Peter