Lens can play in Ligue 1 next season with limits

(Photo: AP)

PARIS — Lens can play in Ligue 1 next season after the French football federation agreed to replace its ban with financial limitations on the club.

Lens won promotion by finishing second in Ligue 2 but was banned from joining the top flight on financial grounds, with the club short of 10 million euros ($13.4 million) in its budget for the upcoming campaign.

However, France’s Olympic Committee upheld Lens’ appeal which was originally rejected by the DNCG — the financial watchdogs of French football.

On Monday, the FFF said "it has decided to accept the proposal to substitute the sentence of prohibiting promotion to Ligue 1, with a limitation of the amount the club can spend on salary and/or recruitment."

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