Second League

Salzburg lawsuit dismissed! Amstetten relieved

The appeal by regional league club Austria Salzburg was also rejected

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

DSV Leoben must be relegated from the 2nd soccer league. Like FC Dornbirn, the club is involuntarily relegated to the third-highest division. The appeal by regional league team Austria Salzburg was also rejected, which is why there is no relegation from a sporting point of view. SKU Amstetten and Sturm Graz II can breathe a sigh of relief.

Amstetten are at the bottom of the table with just 16 points one round to go after a completely botched season, while Graz, seven points ahead of them, will cross the finish line in second-last place. Dornbirn are 14th in the league and therefore currently occupy one of the three relegation places from a sporting point of view, although they could still leave it on Saturday. That would certainly be no consolation. The team from Vorarlberg had already received the news on Thursday that their third attempt to gain admission to the league had unsurprisingly been rejected.

"The court of arbitration came to the conclusion that the legally effective condition of Senate 5 in the area of financial criteria as a prerequisite for the granting of admission was not fulfilled at the required time. The submission of new documents after this deadline was not permitted within the scope of the prohibition of innovation and therefore these were not to be taken into account," it said in a statement on the Leoben ruling. Coach Carsten Jancker's team is currently in fifth place, level on points with third-placed FAC. In the ÖFB Cup, they only reached the semi-finals against Rapid.

That's why nobody gets promoted
The dismissal of the appeal by Salzburg, who have a four-point lead over their closest rivals VfB Hohenems in the Regionalliga West with four rounds to go, was due to infrastructural reasons. "The arbitration court came to the conclusion that the fulfillment of the infrastructural criteria for the coming season could not be sufficiently proven to the protest committee at the time of the expiry of the protest deadline. The submission of new documents after this deadline was not permitted within the framework of the prohibition of innovation and therefore these were not to be taken into account," the league stated.

Of the western regional league, only SC Imst has a valid license for the 2nd division. However, the ninth-placed club no longer has a chance of achieving a place in the table that would entitle it to promotion.