ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Supreme Court has just ruled against Fifa in the case of Brazilian footballer Matuzalem, Forbes is saying the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should be worried about Fifa, and the Zurich-based football group is about to publish the measures it envisages to fight corruption. Few would accuse Fifa, the world football federation, of leading a quiet life, but this is a particularly busy news week for the group.
Matuzalem was ordered to pay $15.8 million to his former club, Shakhtar Donetsk, and Fifa ruled that if he fell behind on his payments he would be banned from the sport. But the high court ruled that this was taking things too far. SI/AP notes that this is a rare victory in the five-year battle between the player and his former club. “A CAS (Lausanne-based sports arbitration court) panel ordered the eight-figure compensation after Matuzalem broke his Shakhtar contract in July 2007 to join Zaragoza, increasing the amount previously awarded by Fifa. That CAS decision in May 2009 was hailed as a victory for clubs and contractual stability against the growing trend of player power.”
Meanwhile, Forbes writes, all is not as smooth as it might be in Brazil, Matuzalem’s home, with the 2014 World Cup coming up. Fifa has been showing its muscle there, too, and, writes Forbes, it appears to be reminding the country that “Fifa ultimately calls the shots and when Brazil signed on for the event they agreed to a governance structure that makes the local organizing committee ‘subject to the supervision and control of Fifa, which has the last word on all matters relevant to the 2014 Fifa World Cup. The decisions of Fifa are final.’”
Fifa will be in sports headlines Friday with the long-awaited proposal on how Fifa corruption and reform, by a team led by Mark Pieth. The former UN investigator was hired by Fifa President Seth Blatter in November 2011 to draw up the proposals based on his research into Fifa’s past problems. AP reports that while Blatter appears to be backing the report, Pieth warns the proposals will be “tough” on Fifa.
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Mohamed Bin Hamman, 2010
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne has agreed to hear the case of Mohamed Bin Hammam vs Fifa, the international football body 18 and 19 April.
He was given a life ban from football in 2011 after a scandal surfaced in May over alleged payments for votes in an election bid to unseat Sepp Blattner as president of Fifa.
AP reports that Bin Hammam is also involved in a legal tussle with the Asian football body: “Bin Hammam, who denies wrongdoing, is involved in a second appeal to stop the Asian Football Confederation from replacing him as president.”
The group’s elections are scheduled for March. He earlier lost an appeal to CAS to hear his case against the same group for dismissing him as its president.
"El Pisolero" Alberto Contador during the 2011 Tour de France (photo, SaxoBank)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Spain’s Alberto Contador has been suspended from cycling for two years after the CAS sports tribunal in Lausanne, TAS, found him guilty on one count of doping. The winner of the 2010 Tour de France loses his crown as a result; it should now go to Andy Schleck of Luxembourg who came in second.
Contador was accused of using clenbuterol. The rider argued that he ate steak from a Basque producer, which accounted for its presence in his system.
Clenbuterol is sometimes used by farmers, although its use is banned in Europe. The hearing was in November but the CAS issued a statement earlier saying the final decision would be delayed because media rumours about the fairness of the hearing had prompted the organization to ensure the parties all agreed to the members of the panel.
The three-member panel’s president, Efraim Barak of Israel, had refused at one point to accept testimony of an expert witness brought in by Contador’s lawyers.
The two other members of the panel are Swiss: Quentin Byrne-Sutton, a Geneva lawyer, and Ulrich Haas, a Zurich professor.
Contador is the second Tour de France winner to lose his title for doping; Floyd Landis, American, lost it in 2006 title after testing positive for testosterone.
Chateau de Bethusy, Lausanne, where the CAS sports arbitration court, holds its hearings
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne Thursday 6 October announced a decision that could have far-reaching implications for the sports world, saying it has overturned an IOC (International Olympic Committee) ban on athletes found guilty of doping.
The immediate result of the decision, which follows an appeal against a Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency) decision by US athlete LaShawn Merritt and the US Olympic Committee, is to allow Merritt to defend his 400-metre title in the London 2012 Olympics.
The IOC has banned athletes with suspensions of more than six months for doping from taking part in the next Olympic Games. Merritt was sentenced to two years, later reduced by three months, in early 2010 for failing tests for a banned steroid.
The IOC had argued that its rule was an attempt to take a tough stance on doping, but the CAS ruling notes that “”The IOC Executive Board’s June 27, 2008 decision prohibiting athletes who have been suspended for more than six months for an anti-doping rule violation from participating in the next Olympic Games following the expiration of their suspension is invalid and unenforceable.”
The CAS says in its statement that “The CAS Panel also emphasized that if the IOC wanted to exclude athletes who have been sanctioned for doping from the Olympic Games, it could propose an amendment to the World Anti-Doping Code, which would allow other Signatories to consider such an amendment and possibly to adopt it.” Such a move would allow the principle of proportionality to be met, according to the CAS, because “only one adjudicatory body would be in position to assess the proper sanction for a behaviour”.
Chateau de Bethusy, Lausanne, where the CAS sports arbitration court, holds its hearings
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CAS, the international arbitration court for sports in Lausanne, says it has accepted for review the appeals by two former officials of the international football federation, Fifa.
Former Fifa executive committee member Amos Adamu of Nigeria has asked that he be found not guilty and his three-year suspension overturned.
Ahongalu Fusimalohi of Tonga is asking that his ban be lifted.
The two were part of a group of six officials found guilty on various corruption charges linked to the 2018 and 2022 football World Cup bidding contests. Fifa in November 2010 handed out fines ranging from CHF5,000 to CHF10,000 and the officials were banned from participating in any football-related activities for a period of one to four years.
The CAS has not yet set a date for the hearings.
Chateau de Bethusy, Lausanne, home of the international sports arbitration court
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Oleh Oriekhov, the Ukrainian football referee accused of game fixing, has lost his appeal. He was handed a life ban “on exercising any football-related activity” by Uefa, the European football federation based in Nyon, in July 2010. Oriekhov took his case to Cas (international sports arbitration court) in Lausanne, which announced Tuesday 18 January that it has upheld the ban, citing repeated contacts between Oriekhov and “and the members of a criminal group involved in match-fixing and betting fraud”.
The referee, under Uefa regulations, should have immediately alerted the football federation when he was first contacted, and it was his failure to do so that is behind the court’s decision.
A 15 December Cas hearing showed that “it has been convincingly established” that Oriekhov had contacts before and after the specific match in question between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia, Cas notes in a statement. “The existence or not of an effective manipulation concerning the Europa League match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia could not be established during the Cas procedure.”
“On 5 November 2009, the referee Oleg Oriekhov officiated a match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia in group E of the 2009-2010 UEFA Europa League.
International sports, football
Update 19:42 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Franck Ribéry will not play in the Champions League final, the Swiss-based court, Cas, ruled late Monday. The Bayern Munich’s French player Franck Ribéry was in Lausanne with the club’s president, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and lawyers, Monday 17 May to plead with Cas (the international Court of Arbitration for Sport) for his football match suspension to be limited to one game, time off that he’s already served. He was given a three-match suspension for a dangerous tackle against Lisandro in a match with Lyons.
The tribunal said it will issue an explanation within a few days. It is the final court of appeals in sport.
Bayern Munich and Franck Ribéry also appeal to Lausanne court this week
Chateau de Bethusy, home to Cas, Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Marion Jones and her US relay team lost their medals after the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games because of doping on her part. This week lawyers for seven women on the team are in Lausanne to argue their case against the IOC’s (International Olympic Committee) decision, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Cas. One of the key issues has been the timeframe, because Jones lost her medals eight years after the Games.
Cas also opened a procedure Monday to review the appeal by football club Bayern Munich and its player Franck Ribéry against a decision by the Uefa Appeals Body to suspend the player for three months after he was handed a ref’s red card for tackling. That decision was taken 5 May. The club and player are asking for a one-game only suspension. Cas says it should be able to rule by 18 May.
In another high profile case handled by Cas, the parties to a dispute over the Togo football team’s suspension from the next two Africa Cup of Nations have agreed to drop the case for now in favour of arbitration. The team was suspended when it dropped out of the last Cup games after its team’s bus was the target of a deadly attack in Angola in January 2010.
Links to other sites: AP, Cas
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - French tennis player Richard Gasquet was exonerated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport Thursday 17 December from any fault or negligence over cocaine in his system, which he says was from kissing in a nightclub. The CAS agreed his assertion is the most likely explanation for the minute amount of the drug found in his system 28 March during the ATP tournament in Miami, Florida, USA.
The amount was so small that it did not reflect social use of the drug, but rather incidental contamination, the court says. “It was also established that the player was clearly not a regular cocaine user, even in very small amounts.”
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Swiss army helicopter with forward-looking infrared technology (Flir) assisted in the rescue of an injured woman hiker near Disentis, canton Graubuenden, early Tuesday 8 September. The Super Puma army helicopter was called in after rescuers from the Swiss airborne rescue corps Rega and Swiss Alpine Club (CAS) were unable to visually locate her late the previous night, according to the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS).
GenevaLunch spoke to Christian Trottman of Rega, who said that the alarm was given by the woman herself, a German who was out hiking alone, by cell phone late afternoon, 7 September.
