The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) jurisprudence on manipulation of sports competitions has vastly evolved from its initial award in RSC Anderlecht in 1998, to now Labuts in August 2020. Alongside, international and national regulations, as well as sporting regulations, including, most recently, the Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, have sought to effectively tackle the omnipresent, ever-growing phenomenon of competition manipulation. Against this backdrop, this article briefly outlines the existing legal landscape on manipulation, followed by a chronological detailing of each CAS issued award. The key aspects of defining such sanctionable behaviour, select issues of standard of proof and types of evidence which are admissible and relied on, as well as the manner and quantum of sanction are then analysed. Ultimately, noting empirical trends across these awards, questions on ne bis in idem, proportionality of sanctions and legal certainty across CAS jurisprudence are raised.
Manipulation of competitions has long plagued the sport industry, affecting almost every sport over time. While sharing certain common features, the regulatory provisions and procedural responses to this phenomenon by international federations (IFs), sports’ governing bodies, vary on many aspects, including the definition of the specific offence of “competition manipulation” itself, scope of application, especially in relationship to betting, categories of participants, mens rea elements such as recklessness and negligent behaviour, reporting obligations, aggravating and mitigating factors, and applicable sanctions across sports and within a sport/discipline. More nuanced items within internal disciplinary procedure also vary across federations, such as standard of proof and evidence. The purpose of this study is to offer a comparative synopsis of the regulations of 43 IFs governing Olympic and certain non-Olympic sports, to provide a critical overview of specific aspects of the above mentioned factors in the regulations and to identify areas of improvement for the future.
This essay seeks to analyze certain elements in the 2020 Court of Arbitration for Sport award in Keramuddin Karim v. Fédération International de Football Associations (CAS 2019/A/6388, award dated July 14, 2020) where the former President of the Afghan Football Federation was sanctioned for offences including sexual abuse of Afghan footballers. Against the backdrop of increasing visibility of and focus on safeguarding of sporting bodies in the recent past, this essay looks at three aspects: (1) the definition and constitution of the offence; (2) select evidentiary matters of standard of proof, anonymous witness statements and due process; and (3) sanctioning—contextualizing them against a non-criminal, arbitration forum’s human rights jurisprudence as it currently stands. Concluding observations made include a dearth of robust provisions in applicable regulations, but the possibility to read rights into them, and the necessity of nuanced, perhaps unconventional, approaches to evidentiary standards and sanctioning.
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