RB Leipzig or Salzburg Champions League ban ´hypothetical´ – UEFA

UEFA has said any potential Champions League ban for RB Leipzig or RB Salzburg is “hypothetical” and will not announce any decision until June.

A report in Austrian publication Salzburg Nachrichten claimed UEFA had signalled it is leaning towards ruling only one of the two teams can participate in next season’s competition.

Both teams, owned by Red Bull, are in line to qualify for the Champions League with Leipzig sitting second in the German Bundesliga as Salzburg top the table in Austria.

“We cannot comment at this stage on what is a hypothetical question,” UEFA told Omnisport.

“[There will be] more concrete information from the beginning of June, when the list of participating clubs taking part in UEFA European competitions is published.”

While European football’s governing body were reluctant to discuss the issue ahead of time, they pointed to Article 5 of their European Competitions Regulations.

As one of its directives, Article 5 states “no club participating in a UEFA club competition may, either directly or indirectly hold or deal in the securities or shares of any other club participating in a UEFA club competition”.

It goes on to state that should any clubs fail to meet the criteria, “only one of them may be admitted to a UEFA club competition”.

But Oliver Mintzlaff, Leipzig’s chief executive and Red Bull’s Global Head of Soccer, insisted he was not worried by the speculation.

He told SID: “We are not nervous at RB Leipzig and also the UEFA signals do not exist. If we qualify there is no reason why we should doubt about playing in Europe next season.”