A Story of Biblical Proportions

David Casserly - PPCFC's lawyer

When Phnom Penh Crown (PPCFC) were smacked with a ban from the AFC Cup, which should’ve been their icing on the cake for winning the Metfone Cambodian League at the end of last year, they were devastated and in disbelief. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) - the governing body for football in the Asian continent - informed the Cambodian Football Federation (FFC) on 20 May 2016 that PPCFC were not allowed to take part because of activities relating to match manipulation and they asked FFC to select another team. With their hard-earned prize torn from their grasp, PPCFC immediately appealed against the ban only for AFC to confirm their decision was final. On 3 June PPCFC made a last-ditch appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), often referred to as ‘sport’s supreme court,’ in an effort to overturn what they saw as an unfair and unjust decision by AFC. CAS is located in Lausanne in Switzerland and resolves sports-related disputes through arbitration, often involving such high-profile names as Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini, Prince Ali bin Hussein of Jordan, Maria Sharapova and dozens of athletes at the recent Rio Olympics.

For a small team like PPCFC from lowly-ranked Cambodia to take on such a formidable adversary in the form of the AFC was unheard of. You could liken it to the biblical proportions of David versus Goliath. PPCFC appointed Irish barrister and sports lawyer David Casserly (pictured above) as their go-to man. His involvement in several landmark cases and his experience acting for FIFA and UEFA, as well as several Champions League clubs in Italy, Portugal and France, was essential to any possibility of a successful appeal. He has a history of acting in leading corruption cases, foremost among them the World Cup vote-buying scandal, several of the key Bosman/Article 17 cases and disputes involving top players such as Luis Suarez, Pepe and Essien. He’d also previously acted as legal counsel and head of mediation at CAS itself. Assisting him was Jose Luis Andrade, a Portuguese attorney who had experience working on dispute resolution at FIFA.

At PPCFC, a small team of head coach Sam Schweingruber, general-secretary Ly Heang, press officer Andy Brouwer alongwith vice president Tommy Lim, provided Casserly and Andrade with the background information they needed to formulate their appeal against the AFC decision to deny PPCFC admission to the 2017 AFC Cup. Afterall, it was PPCFC who initially took internal action against match manipulation activities before placing the evidence with the FFC, who later banned four coaches. To punish the club for their proactive stance against such activities was the underlying unfairness of the AFC position.

The appeal case was heard by the CAS Arbitration Panel in their Lausanne headquarters on 19 August 2016. They found in favour of PPCFC, upholding the appeal, dismissed the decision of AFC and ordered them to allow PPCFC to participate in the AFC Cup Playoff Stage, likely to be held in February 2017. It was another successful landmark case for David Casserly and Jose Luis Andrade and an outcome that speaks volumes for the integrity and resourcefulness of PPCFC. They had stood their ground, taken on the might of AFC and won. History in the making and perhaps a result that a young shepherd boy with a slingshot would be proud of.

End this practice

If you have read my blog before, you will know of my disgust at age-cheating in football, particularly in Asia. Make no bones about it (pun intended), it has been rife for many years in Southeast Asian football, both inside and outside of Cambodia. However, the Asian Football Confederation alongwith with FIFA have been instrumental in highlighting the need to ensure overage players are identified wherever possible and the cheating stopped. This is best achieved at the U-16 age-group level. The AFC Medical Committee chairman commented at a recent seminar: “With the introduction of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) for age determination at AFC U-16 tournaments, the fielding of overage players has virtually come to a halt. This was a chronic problem that went unabated for years marring the image of the sport. A general consensus of introducing 3-D imaging of the growth plate of the radial bone may also take the assessment to the next level, a procedure that never has been done before."
MRI for age determination is specific to U-16 tournaments and the process cannot be applied to other tournaments or female players. At the AFC level, MRI scanning is solely to determine whether the player is either above or below the age of 16 years based on the fusion of the growth plate of the radial bone of the wrist. Eight players were banned at the 2010 AFC U-16 finals after being exposed by the tests. The desire to stop any unfair advantage due to a greater physical maturity compared to players of the proper age must be adhered to by each country's football association before players are selected for tournaments. This has not been the case in the past. Passports and documentation have been adjusted to allow overage players to compete. This has got to stop and every country association must root out and end this practice.