By Olivia Curiger, Pachmann, Attorneys at Law, Zurich, Switzerland
The UEFA EURO 2024 tournament opened on 14 June 2024 with the match between Germany and Scotland. This marked the start of the battle for the trophy for the 24th European Championship participants and for the fans to cheer on their national teams. Just 12 days after the EURO final on 14 July 2024 between England and Spain, the spectacular opening ceremony of the Olympic Games begins in Paris – for the first time outside a stadium, namely on the River Seine.
In addition to the top sporting performances and contests, legal disputes regularly arise at such major events.
Since the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has set up so-called Ad-Hoc Divisions (CAS AHDs) to adjudicate disputes in connection with the Olympic Games (Art. S6 Abs. 8 CAS Code).
The CAS AHDs have also been used for the Commonwealth Games since 1998; for the UEFA EURO tournaments since 2000; and for the FIFA Men’s World Cup since 2006. In addition, the CAS Anti-Doping Division (CAS ADD) has been responsible for the determination of doping cases at the Olympic Games since 2016.
The International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS), the Governing Body of CAS, selects a number of arbitrators for each of these major events to form the CAS AHDs. The selection is limited to the closed list of CAS arbitrators. For the UEFA EURO tournaments and the FIFA World Cup, the ‘referees’ must also be included on the CAS football list. The selected referees are publicly announced shortly before the opening of each major sports event.
Due to the great importance of major sports events in the course of an athlete's career, it is essential that decisions by sports federations and other events can be reviewed within the shortest possible time before they affect the competition. For this reason, separate procedural rules are developed for proceedings before the CAS AHDs to ensure a simple, fast and flexible procedure. Specifically, the panels of the CAS AHDs must issue their decisions within 24 hours of receipt of a party's request in the case of the Olympic Games and within 48 hours in the case of the UEFA EURO tournaments, unless exceptional circumstances justify an extension of these deadlines.
In order to be able to reach a decision within this short period of time, various procedural simplifications are provided for in comparison with the ordinary CAS proceedings, which generally take at least several months.
For example, the parties do not have the right to choose the arbitrators who will determine the case. In order to further accelerate the proceedings, an oral hearing is held immediately after receipt of the complaint, in which all parties participate. In principle, the parties' requests for evidence must also be submitted immediately. If a party requests the opportunity to submit additional evidence that it was unable to submit at the oral hearing for valid reasons, the panel may allow this, if it is necessary for the fair resolution of the dispute.
The jurisdiction of the CAS AHD is limited both in terms of time and subject matter.
In the context of the Olympic Games, for example, the CAS AHD only has jurisdiction in the ten days before the opening ceremony until the end of the Games.
Particularly in cases concerning the qualification and selection of athletes for the Olympic Games, this can lead to cases that only just fall outside the jurisdiction of the CAS AHD because the dispute arose, for example, twelve days before the opening ceremony. However, an assessment within the framework of the ordinary CAS proceedings is hardly possible in such cases until the Olympic Games (see OG 22/002 Andrei Makhnev & Artem Shuldiakov & ROC v. FIS).
Furthermore, the dispute must be related to the Olympic Games (Art. 61.2 of the Olympic Charter).
For further information, log onto the Pachmann Attorneys at Law website at: ‘www.pachmann.law’