diff --git a/include/sound/simple_card_utils.h b/include/sound/simple_card_utils.h
index 8faa649f712b..fe2337fde1f4 100644
--- a/include/sound/simple_card_utils.h
+++ b/include/sound/simple_card_utils.h
@@ -173,7 +173,7 @@ void asoc_simple_canonicalize_platform(struct snd_soc_dai_link_component *platfo
 void asoc_simple_canonicalize_cpu(struct snd_soc_dai_link_component *cpus,
 				  int is_single_links);
 
-int asoc_simple_clean_reference(struct snd_soc_card *card);
+void asoc_simple_clean_reference(struct snd_soc_card *card);
 
 void asoc_simple_convert_fixup(struct asoc_simple_data *data,
 				      struct snd_pcm_hw_params *params);
diff --git a/sound/soc/generic/simple-card-utils.c b/sound/soc/generic/simple-card-utils.c
index fa080f166345..0beda9739ebe 100644
--- a/sound/soc/generic/simple-card-utils.c
+++ b/sound/soc/generic/simple-card-utils.c
@@ -609,7 +609,7 @@ void asoc_simple_canonicalize_cpu(struct snd_soc_dai_link_component *cpus,
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(asoc_simple_canonicalize_cpu);
 
-int asoc_simple_clean_reference(struct snd_soc_card *card)
+void asoc_simple_clean_reference(struct snd_soc_card *card)
 {
 	struct snd_soc_dai_link *dai_link;
 	struct snd_soc_dai_link_component *cpu;
@@ -622,7 +622,6 @@ int asoc_simple_clean_reference(struct snd_soc_card *card)
 		for_each_link_codecs(dai_link, j, codec)
 			of_node_put(codec->of_node);
 	}
-	return 0;
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(asoc_simple_clean_reference);
 
@@ -877,7 +876,9 @@ int asoc_simple_remove(struct platform_device *pdev)
 {
 	struct snd_soc_card *card = platform_get_drvdata(pdev);
 
-	return asoc_simple_clean_reference(card);
+	asoc_simple_clean_reference(card);
+
+	return 0;
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(asoc_simple_remove);