The Swiss Football League have rejected Servette FC’s request to register Omar Rekik, stating that the Arsenal man can’t play in Swiss domestic competition this season.

The Swiss Football League released a statement on Friday to confirm that they’d rejected Servette FC’s request for an exemption to remove two players and register two more after the transfer deadline.

Servette failed to deregister Boubacar Fofana and Chris Bedia before the deadline, meaning new signings Bassirou N’Diaye and Arsenal loanee Omar Rekik couldn’t be registered in their place.

Servette requested an exemption to fix their error, but the SFL have stated that the deadline “must imperatively and in all circumstances be respected”.

The SFL highlight that they’d sent a specific reminder on this subject to all clubs on February 13th, two days before the February 15th deadline.

The statement concludes that it is now “concretely” the case that Omar Rekik cannot be fielded in the Swiss Super League and the Swiss Cup until the end of the season. They emphasise that this decision is final.

In response to the press release, Servette state that they’ve received the decision, and they reserve the right to challenge it.

Despite Servette’s claim that they can still challenge the decision, the SFL statement seems pretty emphatic. It remains to be seen whether Arsenal will now look to recall the defender.

The one small positive in the situation is that Rekik is still eligible to play for Servette in the Europa Conference League, with the club successfully registering him for that competition.

It just seems unlikely they’ll choose to field a player in a European knockout tie who hasn’t featured for them in any other fixtures.