Club León’s decision to appeal to the CAS shows their determination to fight for their place in the Club World Cup. The team believes that they earned the right to participate in the tournament and that FIFA’s decision to exclude them is unfair.
The exclusion of Club León from the 2025 Club World Cup has a new chapter after “La Fiera” received FIFA’s response on the reasons why it was expelled from the Club World Cup, and now it can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), to request that its place be returned in the competition that will be held in the summer.
The León board wanted to know the reason why they were excluded and not Pachuca, to which the governing body of world soccer sent its response in recent hours.
After the announcement of last March 21, where the International Federation of Soccer communicated to the “Esmeraldas” (Emeralds) the decision to be excluded from the Club World Cup of 2025, a place that was won by defeating Los Angeles FC on June 4, 2023, the “Panzas Verdes” (Green Bellies) sent a letter asking for the specification of the particular reasons for the decision and election of the team that would be sanctioned.
What was FIFA’s response to León?
“We want to know why León was left out and from that we are going to make our legal defense,” commented Jesús Martínez Murguía, president of León. “We have just sent an email to FIFA, asking for the arguments and the reason for the decision,” he declared on March 21.
The response took eleven days and decided that only one of the two teams that belong to the same owner could participate in the Club World Cup.
In FIFA’s response, it is emphasized that compliance was made with article 10 of the Club World Cup regulations, which prohibits multi-ownership in the first edition of the tournament.
What will be León’s next steps?
The “Verdiblanca” (Green and White) institution remains surprised because it did not receive a forceful response to its request since they were sent a response with arguments very similar to those they knew the penultimate Friday of the month of March of this year.
With FIFA’s response, León has the door open to open a new file in the CAS, parallel to the plea of Alajuelense of Costa Rica, and claim that the right to play the Club World Cup be returned to them.
One of León’s arguments is that the team earned the right to play the Club World Cup through sports and that the regulations that exclude them came after their qualification.
Before visiting the CAS with the response that FIFA gave them, León will have to appear in Madrid on April 23, together with FIFA and the “Tuzos” (Gophers) of Pachuca, in the hearing requested by La Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, who was the club that filed its complaint on the issue of multi-ownership.
