World Cup-bound Chile face FIFA suspension

South American qualifiers Chile face possible FIFA expulsion and the forfeit of their World Cup place after local club Rangers opened a court case to dispute their relegation.

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Chile's World Cup dream is intact.

FIFA, who do not approve of civil or government intervention in football matters, have given Chile's Football Association (ANFP) 72 hours to make Rangers call off its legal action or else risk suspension from FIFA and its competitions, including the South Africa 2010 World Cup which Chile has qualified for.

Rangers were automatically relegated after being docked three points for breaking the Clausura championship's 6+5 rule which restricts the number of foreign players allowed on the pitch to five. Their legal action has been heavily disruptive, which both the promotion/relegation play-offs and the championship semi-finals put on hold until the matter is resolved.

"We beseech your association to call on your affiliated club ... to withdraw the case it took to the Chilean courts of justice within the next 72 hours or... announce the pertinent sanctions against your affiliated club," a FIFA letter sent to ANFP said.

"If your association does not adopt the necessary measures as we have indicated, the case will be put to FIFA's executive committee in its session of Dec. 3, 2009 in Cape Town... so it considers imposing a suspension against (the ANFP)," added the letter, which was sent to ANFP president Harold Mayne-Nicholls on Thursday.

Mayne-Nicholls, speaking in Asuncion where he attended a meeting of the South American Football Confederation (CSF), had earlier pointed to the risks Rangers' action posed for Chile.

"Those of us in the footballing world know that all this can bring consequences that can be lethal for Chilean football," Mayne-Nicholls said.

"What Rangers have done is prohibited in all the (football) associations in the world," he told the Chilean radio station Agricultura. "FIFA could even disaffiliate Chile."

Such an outcome could endanger Chile's participation in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, their first finals since 1998. If that were to happen, FIFA could consider installing CONCACAF play-off losers Costa Rica, or sixth-placed CONMEBOL nation Ecuador, in their place at South Africa.

FIFA has shown it is serious about outside intervention in football matters. It suspended Chile's South American rivals Peru around this time last year, and recently banned Iraq from FIFA competition after that country's Olympic Committee disbanded the local FA.

Rangers were docked points for having six foreigners on the field, one more than permitted, in the second half of their last match of the qualifying phase of the championship earlier in November.

The club are clinging to a procedural loophole as a result of the impoverished club being in administration since May when they were declared bankrupt. The ANFP should have notified the administrators, and not the club's sporting authorities, of the team's relegation, the club argue.

"(They're looking) for the play-offs not to be held, for us to declare the season ended and so win time so we dock the points from them next season and so avoid relegation," said Mayne-Nicholls.

However, Rangers' administrator Cristian Herrera said he would be prepared to withdraw the court order if the club's creditors asked him to.

"It's their decision. I won't go beyond the wishes of the creditors," Herrera told reporters in Talca.

The ANFP has called an urgent meeting of its council of club presidents for Monday. Mayne-Nicholls was returning to Santiago late on Thursday.