UEFA banned four clubs from competing in Champions League and Man City appeal won

It might be FIFA's controversial Club World Cup that is currently in the spotlight, but for a host of clubs, the 2025/26 Champions League campaign will soon begin. The first qualifying rounds are scheduled for early July, with the seeded draw for the revamped league phase taking place on August 28.

UEFA has been criticised for complicating the previous procedure, but the financial rewards for qualifying for Europe's premier club competition are growing increasingly lucrative. However, the tournament has also been tainted by controversy in the past, with four clubs banned from competing for various misdemeanours. That figure would have been five if one powerhouse in English football had not had sanctions overturned.

Express Sport looks back at the clubs that have fallen foul of UEFA and paid a heavy price...

Juventus

It's not just in Italy where Juventus have fallen foul of the authorities. The two-time winners were banned from the 2023/24 Champions League, won by Real Madrid, after breaching Financial Fair Play rules. Just as well Everton didn't make it then.

Besiktas

In the 2013/14 campaign, the Turkish side qualified for the final stage of Champions League qualification after finishing third in the Super Lig. However, by that point, they were serving a one-year ban from UEFA competitions.

The club had allegedly been involved in domestic match-fixing. Bosses protested their innocence and appealed the punishment, but to no avail.

Fenerbahce

Another Turkish side, another match-fixing scandal. Long before Jose Mourinho's time, the club became embroiled in a scandal in 2013 and was hit with a two-year UEFA ban.

While an appeal was being heard, Fenerbahce were able to play a qualifier for the Champions League against Arsenal. They lost both the appeal and the tie, slapped 5-0 by the Aaron Ramsey-inspired Gunners.

FK Pobeda

The minnows of this list, yet, the club hit with the most severe UEFA ban. The North Macedonian outfit was barred for eight years in 2009 for allegedly 'manipulating the outcome of a match' after irregular betting patterns emerged from one of their Champions League qualifiers.

The patterns relate to a 2004 qualifier against Armenia's FC Pyunik. The penalty was belated but seismic.

Man City escape

In 2020, the reign of Pep Guardiola was thrown into doubt after UEFA imposed a two-year Champions League ban on the English champions for a 'serious breach of UEFA's financial fair play rules'. Not as serious, however, as City's legal budget, and the club got the ban overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.