Rob Harris, global sports correspondent for The Associated Press, appeared on the latest edition of the Football Today podcast to discuss the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) full reasons for overturning Manchester City’s two-year ban from UEFA competitions on appeal after the details of their findings were released last week.
One of the topics that Harris touched on during his recent appearance on the Football Today podcast was the make-up of the CAS panel that ruled on this case. As per The Guardian, as well as their reasons for overturning the ban, CAS’ full judgement revealed that Rui Botica Santos, who acted as the chairman of the panel for this case, was nominated by Manchester City, along with one of the other two panel members.
This report from The Guardian explains that CAS’ ‘rules for appeals state that each party chooses one arbitrator, then the chairman is selected by the chairman of CAS’ own appeals arbitration division.’ However, in this case, Manchester City nominated the chairman, meaning that two-thirds of the panel were chosen by City.
Here is what Harris had to say about this revelation regarding the CAS panel during his recent appearance on the Football Today podcast: “It has to be noted – the whole panel, there are three members on the panel, and there was a majority in terms of some of the decisions and City got to nominate two members of the panel – UEFA got to nominate one.
“Normally, each side nominates one arbitrator and then a third independent figure is brought in, chosen independently, and you then have to wonder just why exactly UEFA allowed this? Were they so confident in their case? Or you then have to go further – on Monday of last week I was able to ask the Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge about this and he said that he didn’t believe UEFA did a good job on the case.”
Do you think it is strange that City got to nominate two-thirds of the CAS panel?
NO
YES
TIF Thoughts…
As per The Guardian, ‘there is no suggestion of actual bias on the part of either of City’s nominated arbitrators,’ however, it is strange that CAS seemingly deviated from the norm in this case, allowing City to nominate two of the three arbitrators that made up the panel and it may be a wonder why UEFA allegedly ‘did not object’ to this.
With that in mind, it may be understandable why Bayern’s Rummenigge believes that UEFA didn’t do a good job on this case as Harris claimed and it may also be understandable why he questioned why UEFA allowed the panel to be made up in this way.