Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

Sport is sailing rudderless into geopolitical storms - Russia and Israel responses show how absence of rules makes FIFA and the IOC tools of the global north - By Nick McGeehan

Editor's note: Nicholas McGeehan is co-director of human rights research and advocacy group FairSquare, which works among other things on the nexus between sport and authoritarianism. He is a former senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and holds a PhD in international law from the European University Institute in Florence.


Boycotts, divestments and sanctions are each controversial and contentious in their own right, but when combined under the right conditions, they have explosive potential. BBC football presenter Gary Lineker found this out to his cost when he retweeted a call from Palestine’s BDS movement to suspend Israel from FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC)  until such time the Israeli state ends what they called “the crime of genocide it is perpetrating in Gaza” and its occupation of Palestinian territory. Lineker quickly deleted his retweet but not before the UK’s most popular right-wing tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mail, spotted it and renewed their fulminating campaign against Lineker’s support for political causes that run contrary to the Mail’s editorial positions. The Daily Mail does not oppose sporting boycotts, in fact judging from an article by its football columnist, Martin Samuel, it was an ardent supporter of Russia’s ejection from European football in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine. “Why should Russian football get to be part of the continent in which it has murdered innocents?,” asked Samuel  and in that regard he was not alone and was echoing views heard across the political divide in the west at the time. 

The west continues to boycott Russia, its companies have divested from Russia, and its governments are sanctioning Russia. This includes in the sporting arena where nobody batted an eyelid when Russian football teams were excluded from FIFA and UEFA competition, and its athletes excluded from IOC competition.  So it seems obvious that it  is not so much BDS tactics that offend people in certain quarters, but rather their target. Russia can be BDS’d until the cows come home, but BDS’ing Israel is beyond the pale. You can see how it might be hard to explain to a child.

Through an examination of the widely divergent responses to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and Israel’s actions in Gaza, this piece argues that FIFA and the IOC have aligned themselves with the political positions of the countries of the global north. With reference to previous sporting boycotts, it demonstrates how an absence of rules has left FIFA and the IOC sailing rudderless into stormy geopolitical waters and argues that they need to institute rules to guide their responses to events of this gravity and magnitude. Dispensing once and for all with the canard that sport and politics can be kept apart would enable sport’s governing bodies to appropriately leverage their political power and not merely act as puppets of the global north.


Russia and a case of force majeure

On 28 February 2022, four days after Russia launched its ground invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA issued a joint statement suspending all Russian national and club teams from competition. Poland and Sweden had significantly upped the pressure two days earlier when they said they would refuse to play Russia in qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in December of that year. Their message was very clear - it’s them or us.

The Russian football federations took its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), arguing that  it had been punished arbitrarily for conduct that is neither mentioned nor proscribed in FIFA’s statutes. FIFA said its response was  “warranted and necessary in the face of the unprecedented and widespread reaction of the international community” and that it had the right to take its decision since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a case of force majeure (a catastrophic event that could not have been predicted), granting it the right under World Cup regulations to exclude Russia. (It is beyond the scope of this article to examine a similar case that the Russian football federation took against UEFA but detailed analysis of the two cases is available, courtesy of Antoine Duval.)

CAS sided with FIFA, noting that neither FIFA statutes nor the World Cup regulations contained any specific provisions that addressed wars of aggression, but agreeing with FIFA’s position that it had to respond urgently and that “the consequences of the military action were a force majeure event”. The CAS panel also noted that sanctions usually apply to the team who refuses to play but justified its reversal of established rules and precedent, by saying that  “circumstances of this particular case are to date unique.” The CAS panel’s comments on Russia’s argument that FIFA’s actions were inconsistent with its inaction in previous instances of state aggression are worth repeating here in full.

The Panel does not consider it helpful to compare previous global conflicts and the responses of other international sports federations in relation to a particular country’s involvement in those conflicts. The Russian State’s annexation of Crimea or the activities of the Assad regime in Syria, both recent examples of military conflict, have not, for better or for worse, elicited the same global reaction from governments, nongovernmental organisations, international bodies or the wider public (whether or not in the view of some people or entities, it should have). The reality is that this military conflict has elicited an unprecedented global reaction, including amongst the general public, and it was the consequences of that reaction to which FIFA considered it was required to act in order to fulfil its statutory objectives.

CAS offered a frank and pragmatic assessment of the situation, but was mistaken in its view that there was an unprecedented global reaction. On the contrary, many countries in the Global South did not join in universal condemnation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, in fact 40 member states consistently abstained or voted against resolutions proposed in the UN General Assembly that condemned Russian actions, and 50 member states voted against expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council. These included many African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries, who, as noted by Professor Christopher Alden, of the London School of Economics, were in part motivated by their “exasperation at Western hypocrisy towards violations of sovereignty.”

It was political pressure from the Global North, via European football federations, that forced the hand of FIFA.

The International Olympic Committee came under similar pressure. A few days after Russian troops entered Ukraine, the IOC issued a statement saying that it was “united in its sense of fairness not to punish [Russian] athletes for the decisions of their government” but nonetheless recommended that International Sports Federations and sports event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian (and Belarusian) athletes. 

In September 2022, two independent UN human rights experts (known as Special Rapporteurs), Professor Alexandra Xanthaki and Professor E. Tendayi Achiume  wrote to IOC President Thomas Bach expressing “serious concern” about the sanctions imposed on athletes. They described the decision to relocate or cancel events in Russia and Belarus and not to play their anthems in sporting events as “ sanctions that can be considered as legitimate, as they directly target these States or their official representations” but said that exclusion of athletes based solely on nationality violated the principle of non-discrimination and was at odds with international human rights law as well as the Olympic Charter. In January 2023, the IOC reversed its decision, under what they called “strict conditions”. Russia and Belarussian athletes could participate in competitions as “neutral athletes” and on the proviso that they “have not acted against the peace mission of the IOC by actively supporting the war in Ukraine.” The following month representatives of 35 governments - 27 of them European - issued a joint statement of concern at the IOC’s decision and expressing their support for a blanket ban. “We have strong concerns on how feasible it is for Russian and Belarusian Olympic athletes to compete as ‘neutrals’ … when they are directly funded and supported by their states (unlike, for example, professional tennis players)”, read the statement, which was also signed by the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. “The strong links and affiliations between Russian athletes and the Russian military are also of clear concern”, it added.

One of the UN Special Rapporteurs, Alexandra Xanthaki, came under fierce criticism online after tweeting about the IOC’s decision to reverse the ban. “If my country did what russia is doing (invading a sovereign country) I would leave and refuse to associate with my national identity until it stopped - they should do the same” wrote one Twitter user. “The US waged an illegal war in 2003. I don’t remember people trying to ban Michael Phelps from swimming”, responded Xanthaki. 

Xanthaki and Achium had made this same point in more formal channels, in their first communication to the IOC the previous year. “Please explain how the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee has responded to other instances in which a State has engaged in territorial aggression toward another State. Please clarify whether the committee has banned athletes of other nationalities on the basis of the territorial aggression of the State to which they belong as a citizen previously.” 

In October 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for assuming control of regional sports organisations in Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by Russia, arguing that it was a violation of the Olympic Charter, but without providing specific details of the provisions it deemed Russia to have violated. 

The Olympic Charter is replete with references to its contribution to “peaceful societies” and “solidarity” and the “development of humankind” and nobody would contest the fact that Russia’s brutal and bloody war on Ukraine is entirely inconsistent with those values, but one could say the same of numerous conflicts and aggressions that did not stir the IOC to act. If the Olympic Charter contained references to international legal norms - to illegal annexation or violations of jus cogens norms or war crimes or occupation or aggression or crimes against humanity - then a decision to exclude Russia would have a substantive rationale, but it does not. And, as noted by CAS, nor do FIFA’s statutes. 

The responses of FIFA and the IOC to Russia’s actions in Ukraine were not based on rules, they were responses to the political positions of the powerful states of the global north. If there were any doubt about that, the failure of these sporting bodies to respond to Israel’s actions in the aftermath of the Hamas war crimes of October 7 surely provide conclusive evidence. 


To boycott or not to boycott

At the time of writing Israel’s actions in Gaza have resulted in South Africa filing a case against it at the International Court of Justice arguing that it is committing genocide. The ICJ issued provisional measures on Russia in March 2022 and 32 states formally intervened in the case, most of them the very same western states who criticised the IOC’s decision to repeal its blanket ban on Russian athletes. None of those states have intervened in support of the case against Israel despite the compelling evidence presented by South Africa’s legal team. On the contrary, Germany has intervened in support of Israel’s defence. The United States has called the South African submission “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact.” The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary called the case “nonsense.” 

Anyone who has even  skimmed through South African’s  84-page submission would have to concede that there is a very strong case to answer and facts listed still jar the senses.

One Palestinian child in Gaza has been killed approximately every 15 minutes since Israel commenced military action in Gaza on 7 October 2023. … 61 hospitals and health care facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed …Babies are dying from preventable causes: in addition to disease and malnutrition, premature babies have died due to lack of fuel to supply hospital generators; others have been found decomposing in their hospital cots…Over 60 per cent of homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. …93 per cent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with more than one in four facing “catastrophic conditions” — with death imminent. 

Despite these very well-documented facts, there have been no calls in the west to exclude Israel from FIFA or UEFA competitions, or for its athletes to be disqualified from the Paris 2024 Olympics. As things stand, a hastily-deleted Gary Lineker retweet arguably represents the high-water mark of western support for a boycott of Israeli sporting teams. As noted by Karim Zidan, “This discrepancy in handling international conflicts highlights a concerning double standard that undermines the credibility of these sporting organizations.” It should also be noted that arguments to suspend Israel predate its response to Hamas’s October 7 war crimes. Antoine Duval highlighted Israel as the most obvious example of the double standard inherent in FIFA’s and UEFA’s decisions to exclude Russian football teams from competition in an article published long before October 7. “The FUR is no more directly responsible for the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine than the IFA for the illegal occupation by the Israeli army of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Why are other wars not deemed so disruptive that they must lead to the suspension of national teams?”

Outside of the west, a call to suspend Israel from sporting competition is far less controversial and has some clear and obvious precedents. In December 2023, the Jordanian Football Association called for all Israeli sports federations to be suspended from international competition in a move that recalls the 1974 expulsion of Israel from the Asian Football Confederation following a Kuwaiti motion. Israeli’s national team spent two decades in the sporting wilderness until UEFA agreed to allow Israel to be part of the European confederation in the 1990s.

At the time of Israel’s expulsion from the AFC, sporting boycotts were in vogue. FIFA excluded the South African football team from competition in 1961 on account of the state’s apartheid policy, its athletes were excluded from the 1964 Olympic games and South Africa was expelled entirely from the IOC in 1970. South Africa was only readmitted to the IOC and FIFA in 1992, which was the same year that UEFA disqualified Yugoslavia from the European Championships. In this case, UEFA’s hand was forced by international law, more specifically United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 757 , which was issued a few months before the tournament began and among other things called on all states to “take the necessary steps to prevent the participation in sporting events on their territory of persons or groups representing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).”

In the realm of sporting boycotts, the case of Yugoslavia appears to be one of the few instances where the exclusion of a sporting team - however morally justified - was driven by precise rules and due process. Those rules and processes were that of the UN Security Council, an anachronistic and profoundly anti-democratic body controlled by its five permanent members - Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France - none of whom could ever be called peaceniks.


How sport might use its political leverage

Is it possible for sport to safely navigate its way through these choppy and dangerous geopolitical waters? Perhaps not, but it could at least chart a course.

It bears repeating that sport is profoundly political, and international sport is an important actor in geopolitical affairs. Rob Nixon, in his study of the sporting boycott of apartheid-era South Africa, beautifully articulated the point. “International sporting contests serve as a form of national recreation in more than one sense of the phrase. They are exhibitionist events imbued with the authority to recreate or simulate the nation, offering a vigorous display of a proxy body politic.” Exclusion from these events therefore comes at a political cost to the states affected. This means that sport has political power and leverage. Not as much as the United States or Russia or Israel maybe, but some.

The problem is that FIFA and the IOC are using their leverage largely  in the service of the political interests of the global north, excluding some states and turning a blind eye to others. To return to the point of Alexander Xanthaki, if illegal and ruinous wars of aggression were grounds for exclusion, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 would have resulted in their athletes’ exclusion from the Athens Olympics in 2004. Might all of the UK’s national federations have been excluded from qualifying games for the 2006 men’s World Cup in Germany  for their participation in the Iraq war?  

In all likelihood these glaring double standards are of little concern to FIFA or the IOC, organisations which have grown fat on the billions of dollars in revenue that they generate from selling image and broadcast rights, but they should be of concern to people who genuinely care about the governance of sport. 

So what could progressive governance look like? Should FIFA and the IOC impose rules that provide for national teams to be excluded from competitions on political grounds? Well since they already do exclude teams, and given the leverage that they obviously possess, it would make a lot more sense for them to be proactive and set their own rules, than to be reactive and respond to the political whims of others. As Antoine Duval has argued, it would be preferable if sporting bodies were to “ openly acknowledge the need to take decisions on the basis of political or ethical considerations in certain situations and to introduce proper procedures and rules in their statutes and rulebooks to deal with such cases.”

In terms of what the rules should be, that would be a hotly-debated matter.  The argument that states should be excluded for gross and serious violations of human rights might be seductive to human rights advocates, but in practice it would be entirely unworkable - which violations? Decided by whom? A set of objective and measurable criteria is probably the only way that FIFA and the IOC could exercise their leverage appropriately. For the sake of argument, here are a couple of suggestions.

The ICJ is a highly reputable and well-established court that resolves disputes between states, all of whom accept its jurisdiction. On 26 January it issued a damning assessment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and ordered it to desist from acts that violate the Genocide Convention. The ICJ issued similar provisional measures calling on Russia to “suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine” on 16 March 2022 - only a few weeks after the invasion. Russia has refused to abide by the court’s decision. It remains unclear if Israel intends to follow the court’s orders. FIFA and the IOC could fairly easily include a rule excluding teams and athletes from countries that don’t abide by the ICJ’s decisions. 

A second, more radical, suggestion would be to make ratification of critical international treaties that promote international peace and justice a prerequisite for participation in international sporting events. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court , for example, gives the ICC authority to prosecute individuals for the commission of the most serious international crimes and commits the 123 countries that have ratified the treaty of accepting its jurisdiction. The United States, Russia, China, India and Israel are among the states that have not ratified the Rome Statute. 

To reiterate, these are merely suggestions for the types of steps that  progressive sporting bodies might consider, and as one prominent campaigner has noted, “International justice has always fallen flat when it comes to dealing with powerful Western interests”. But consider a world where Israel’s participation in the Paris 2024 Olympics rested on it abiding by the ICJ’s decision. Imagine a situation where the United States, which has provided crucial political, military and financial support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, faced the prospect of hosting the 2026 World Cup without its national team involved unless it agreed to the jurisdiction of the ICC.

We should be clear-eyed about the fact that western support for Israel’s actions in Gaza has left the international rules-based order in tatters. Future generations may spend their lives rebuilding faith in and support for a more equitable and dependable system of global order and peace. Sport, for its part,will always be vulnerable to a battering by geopolitical forces that it cannot counter, but it can at least gird itself with rules that mitigate against it being used as a tool of unaccountable power.

Comments are closed
Asser International Sports Law Blog | The Legia Warszawa case: The ‘Draconian’ effect of the forfeiture sanction in the light of the proportionality principle. By Thalia Diathesopoulou

Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

The Legia Warszawa case: The ‘Draconian’ effect of the forfeiture sanction in the light of the proportionality principle. By Thalia Diathesopoulou

The CAS denial of the urgent request for provisional measures filed by the Legia Warszawa SA in the course of its appeal against the UEFA Appeals Body Decision of 13 August 2014 put a premature end to Legia’s participation in the play-offs of the UEFA Champion’s League (CL) 2014/2015. Legia’s fans- and fans of Polish football - will now have to wait at least one more year to watch a Polish team playing in the CL group stage for the first time since 1996.

While the CAS proceedings for the appeal filed by Legia against UEFA and Celtic FC are pending and the grounds of dismissal by the CAS of the application for provisional measures have not been publicly known, the CAS is called to rule on the interpretation of the proportionality principle with regard to the application of the 3-0 defeat sanction against a club that fielded an ineligible player. The cornerstone question is whether the final award on the merits will be in line with UEFA and CAS jurisprudence suggesting a literal interpretation of Article 21.2 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations (UEFA DR) or whether the CAS will allow for a broader interpretation of the proportionality principle in case of mere technical administrative errors. 


Background and facts of the case

Legia’s adventures began when Legia’s player, Bartosz Bereszynski, was sent off in their final Europa League tie of last season against Apollon Limassol FC and was sanctioned by the UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body decision of 13 February 2014 with three-match suspension.  UEFA regulations are clear in that a ban applies to a player if he is listed in a club’s squad for matches. Bereszynski did not play in Legia’s games with St Patrick’s Athletics and in the first leg against Celtics FC. However, due to a technical error of Legia’s administrator, which was to prove fatal, the player was not registered in the squad list for the St Patrick’s tie and the first two games of his suspension were never properly recognized. As a result of the player’s failure to serve the suspension, Bereszynski’s participation in the second leg against Celtics FC as a 86th minute substitute triggered the application of Article 18 of the Regulations of the UEFA Champions League 2012-2015 and Article 21.2 of the UEFA DR and Legia was to be sanctioned for fielding a suspended player. Therefore, the match was declared forfeited; for UEFA’s purposes, Legia lost the game 3-0 and the initial 6-1 aggregate defeat for Celtic was reversed to a 4-4 aggregate score, opening the door for Celtic to progress in UEFA CL play-offs on away goals.  


The Legia case in the light of UEFA jurisprudence

At a first glance, the case at issue seems to present several factual similarities with the Bowyer and Matoukou cases brought before UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary Body, which, however, have never been appealed before the CAS.

In the first case, similarly to the Legia case, due to an administrative error of Newcastle United FC, Bowyer had not been registered as ‘eligible to play’ in the six UEFA matches in 2004. As a result, UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary body, applying UEFA Regulations, decided that Bowyer had not served the suspension carried over from his days as a Leeds United player and was banned for the next six European matches. This decision was challenged by Newcastle and the English Football Association (FA) before the UEFA’s Appeal Body, which upheld the initial decision. It is remarkable that the FA supported Newcastle’s appeal, expressing its concerns with regard to the ambiguous language of the rules on players’ eligibility.

In the second case, Matoukou while playing for KRC Genk against FC Porto on 19 August 2010 in a UEFA Europa League qualifier, received a red card and as a consequence was sanctioned with a two-match suspension. Matoukou sat out the second leg of that tie and, after Genk’s elimination, played no further European games for Genk. On 2 August 2012, Matoukou, as a player of Arsenal Kiev FC, scored against ND Mura 05. However, Matoukou had not served the second part of his suspension before taking part to this game. As a result of his ineligibility, UEFA’s Control and Disciplinary Body declared the match forfeited. Although there is no doubt that the player did not serve the two-match suspension, this case illustrates the most recent example of the clear-cut application of Disciplinary Regulations by UEFA.

A similar example is the harsh sanction of 3-0 defeat applied against PAOK Saloniki in 2004 for fielding the suspended player, Laisis Louca, in the first leg of the CL third qualifying round against Maccabi Tel Aviv. NK Zepce was also punished with the same severity in 2005 for fielding a suspended player in the first half of their match against FK Baskimi. The inevitable conclusion of this brief overview of UEFA jurisprudence is that UEFA’s practice has been consistent; UEFA Regulations on players’ eligibility are sufficiently clear and they give no room for a different interpretation. However, it should be noted that the UEFA decisions can be appealed before the CAS. Therefore, the CAS jurisprudence needs to be examined in order to assess whether the CAS in interpreting UEFA Regulations has deviated from this rather simplistic clear-cut approach of UEFA.  


The Legia case in the light of CAS jurisprudence

The Sion[1] case has been the CAS landmark case with regard to the proportionality of the sanction of forfeiture for clubs fielding ineligible players. In this case, the CAS confirmed that FC Sion was banned from registering five new players in the summer transfer period of 2011/12 pursuant to the FIFA decision and was excluded from UEFA Europa League. Funnily enough, Celtic was also back then the lucky club, which enjoyed a ‘second bite of the cherry’. While this case presents only few factual similarities with the Legia case, its importance lies in that the CAS had to rule whether a club’s exclusion mandated by UEFA Regulations is in conformity with Swiss antitrust law and the proportionality principle.

The CAS confirmed that UEFA is an undertaking enjoying a dominant position on the market of international football competitions.[2] However, according to the CAS,  Article 18 of the UEFA Regulations authorizing UEFA to sanction clubs which field ineligible players does not constitute an abuse of its dominant position, but rather ‘guarantees the efficiency and equal treatment of the clubs[3]. Relying on its mandate to establish uniform regulations applicable equally to all clubs and to guarantee legal certainty in sports competitions, the CAS found that the sanction of forfeiture for clubs fielding ineligible players is an appropriate, necessary and proportionate measure.[4] To reach this conclusion, the CAS applied a twofold test for the proportionality principle to be enforced: (1) the capacity of the sanction of forfeiture to achieve the aim it pursues, i.e. to ensure the equal treatment of the clubs; and (2) the necessity of the sanction, i.e. the absence of alternative measures, since during the qualification phase of the tournament other sanctions such as the deduction of points are not possible.

In this case, the CAS deviated from the strict literal interpretation of Article 21.2 of UEFA Disciplinary Regulations and elaborated an interpretation of the forfeiture sanction in the light of the proportionality principle, applying the twofold test. It is highly likely that the CAS in the Legia case will follow this interpretation, relying on the necessity of the sanction, i.e. because of the absence of alternative measures, and its mandate to protect the equal treatment of the clubs and will confirm, therefore, the conformity of the UEFA decision with Article 21.2. However, it is the suggestion of this case commentary that a different interpretation of Article 21.2 in the light of the proportionality principle could also be elaborated on.  


Mapping an alternative interpretation of Article 21.2 of UEFA Disciplinary Regulations

In this attempt to elaborate a different interpretation of Article 21.2 in the light of the proportionality principle, this article will use as a benchmark the CAS finding that ‘other elements such as the systematic context, the purpose and history of the rule may contribute to the correct understanding of the meaning of the rule[5]. Although the wording of Article 21.2 is clear and seems to create a lex specialis rule with regard to the forfeiture sanction in case of a player’s ineligibility, it is suggested that a different interpretation of Article 21 can be envisaged if it is examined in conjunction with the General Principles laid down in Article 17.1 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulation.

Specifically, Article 17.1 states that the disciplinary body determines the type and extent of the disciplinary measures to be imposed in accordance with the objective and subjective elements of the offence, taking account of both aggravating and mitigating circumstances.[6] This means that a sanction may be scaled down when proper consideration is given to the specific circumstances. This provision is in line with the well-established in Swiss law, EU law and CAS jurisprudence[7] proportionality principle, namely that in disciplinary matters a reasonable balance must be struck between the violation and the sanction.

Therefore, in the case at issue the question could be articulated as such: Could an interpretation of Article 21.2 in the context of Article17.1 and the proportionality principle result in a different sanction than forfeiture?

In the light of Article 17.1, an argument deriving from the specific ‘aggravating and mitigating’ circumstances of Article 17.1 could be that the ineligible player did actually abstain from three matches and it was due to a mere technical error that the player did not serve his suspension correctly. It could be suggested, therefore, that the forfeiture sanction is too harsh, since Legia acted in good faith and it was only because of this administrative error that the player was considered ineligible.

Furthermore, in the same spirit, Legia could claim that the sanction should be scaled down given that the player in question played for only four minutes as a substitute with the aggregate score of 6-1 in Legia’s favour. Considering that the ineligible player did not have any considerable impact on the tie[8], Legia could claim that the forfeiture sanction is too harsh as compared to the violation committed by the club. In a similar case, in 2010, UEFA fined Debrecen VSC for fielding in a good faith an ineligible player, instead of declaring the match forfeit: UEFA considered that Debrecen ‘had no interest in fielding this player for the three last minutes of additional time, when the score was so clearly in its favour’. It should be pointed out that in the Debrecen case the ineligible player was free to play if registered and, as a result, Article 21.3 applied. By contrast, in the Legia case the player was suspended and therefore excluded from the competition.

However, it could be argued that UEFA’s decision in the Debrecen case could serve as a guideline for a more flexible interpretation of Article 21.2. While the wording of Article 21.3 itself gives enough room for discretion to UEFA to declare a match forfeit (‘a match may be declared forfeit’), an interpretation of Article 21.2 in the light and purpose of Articles 17.1 and 21.3 could lead to a less draconian sanction, taking into consideration the specific circumstances of the case. Although the difference in the wording between Articles 21.2 (‘a match is declared’) and 21.3 draws a clear distinction between the consequences of fielding a suspended player and an ineligible player, it is the suggestion of this commentary that this distinction is at odds with the proportionality principle. Considering the proportionality’s principle status as a ‘general principle of law governing the imposition of sanctions of any disciplinary body[9], it is surprising that Article 21.2 imposes the forfeiture sanction, without any reference to the proportionality of the sanction as compared to the violation committed. In this sense, the sanction of forfeiture leading to Legia’s exclusion from UEFA CL – and to the enormous economic loss for the club that this exclusion entails- seems disproportionate in the light of the specific circumstances of the case. In other words, a literal interpretation of Article 21.2, even in cases where the violation is the result of a mere technical error and the fact that the Club had no interest in fielding the suspended player, seems to overturn the reasonable balance between the violation and the sanction. 


Conclusive remarks

Until today, in the name of legal certainty, UEFA and the CAS have applied in a consistent way a literal interpretation of Article 21.2 of UEFA Disciplinary Regulations. While legal certainty is the ratio legis and justification of the sanctions imposed by UEFA[10], this commentary argued that the ‘without-exemption’ application of the forfeiture sanction can undermine the proportionality principle, which is also a fundamental principle recognized by the CAS jurisprudence. In this light, it has been demonstrated that a flexible interpretation of Article 21.2 in the context of the general provisions of Article 17.1, i.e. an interpretation which would render the act of fielding a suspended player subject to the full scale of disciplinary measures and would leave sufficient room for discretion to UEFA disciplinary body and to the CAS, would be in compliance with the proportionality principle. To this extent, construing a method for interpretation of Article 21.2 in conjunction with Articles17.1 and 21.3 is an important step to arrive at a better evaluation of the existing regime and to clarify the complex and still unsettled interplay between the intensity of the violation and the sanction.

Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the CAS will follow the path -strikingly consistent until now- of a literal interpretation of Article 21.2 or whether it will opt for a tailored sanction, which would be in compliance with the proportionality principle.



[1] CAS 2011/O/2574 UEFA v. Olympique des Alpes SA/FC Sion

[2] CAS 2011/O/2574 (n 5), para 115.

[3] Ibid, paras 124 & 130.

[4] Ibid, para 135.

[5] CAS 2007/A/1363 TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen v/ETTU, award of 5 October 2007, para 12

[6] Article 17.1 (n 1).

[7] CAS 2001/A/330 R. v. Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron (FISA), Award of 23 Nov 2001

[8] By contrast, see Sion case (n5) where Pascal Feindouno, one of Sion’s ineligible players, scored against Celtic.

[9] G. Kaufmann-Kohler and A. Rigozzi, ‘Legal Opinion on the Conformity of Article 10.6 of the 2007 Draft WADA Code with the Fundamental Rights of Athletes’, 42.

[10] CAS 2007/A/1278&1279,  para 131.

Comments are closed