Fifa appeals against Cas verdict on Jean-Bart because of ‘substantial flaws’
Fifa has confirmed it has appealed against the court of arbitration for sport’s decision to overturn its lifetime ban on Yves Jean-Bart, the former president of the Haitian Football Federation (FHF), due to concerns over “very serious procedural and substantive flaws” in the verdict.
Jean-Bart – known as “Dadou” – was banned by Fifa’s ethics committee in November 2020 for alleged harassment and sexual abuse against female footballers after a series of investigations by the Guardian.
The 75-year-old, who denies the allegations, appealed to Cas and the case was heard by an arbitral panel at the end of March 2022, which “unanimously noted the lack of coherence and inaccuracies in the statements of victims and witnesses presented by Fifa” when it announced its decision last month.
But after also rejecting an attempt by Jean-Bart to reclaim his position as FHF president, Fifa has now confirmed it has filed an appeal against the Cas verdict with the Swiss Federal Tribunal and accused the panel of “failure to evaluate key pieces of evidence”.
“After having carefully analysed the Cas award, Fifa is concerned that this award contains a number of very serious procedural and substantive flaws, including the Cas panel’s failure to evaluate key pieces of evidence that were offered by Fifa,” read a statement.
“As a result, Fifa can confirm it has filed an appeal against the Cas award before the Swiss Federal Tribunal, requesting its annulment and referral back to Cas. Fifa remains strongly committed to protecting victims of sexual abuse and misconduct in football and will continue to apply ‘zero tolerance’ to any such acts perpetrated by persons falling under its jurisdiction.”
According to Cas’s statutes, it usually permits appeals only “on a very limited number of grounds” including
the “violation of elementary procedural rules (eg violation of the right to a fair hearing)”. Human Rights Watch questioned the decision by Cas to rule in favour of Jean-Bart after it claimed that some alleged victims were “threatened into silence”, while the international players’ union, Fifpro, raised concerns about “serious, explicit and extensively documented threats” that it says were made towards those asked to give evidence against Jean-Bart.
Fifa appointed a normalisation committee to oversee the FHF in December 2020 after Jean-Bart was initially banned by its ethics committee. But he announced his intention to return as president earlier this month at a press conference. “He was elected as president for four years, and his term has not ended,” his lawyer, Claude Ramoni, said. Jean-Bart also revealed he had written to Fifa to demand that he was restored to his role.
However, a letter sent last week by Fifa’s chief member associations officer, Kenny Jean-Marie, to Luis Hernandez – the normalisation committee chairman – that has been seen by the Guardian said that Jean-Bart’s claim had been rejected. “We refer to the letters of 24 February 2023 that we received from Mr Yves Jean-Bart and his lawyers,” wrote Jean-Marie.
“In this regard, for all intents and purposes, we would like to point that out the Bureau of the Fifa Council decided on 11 December 2020, based on art 8 par 2 of the Fifa statutes, to appoint a normalisation committee for the FHF, thus relieving the executive committee of the FHF of its functions.”
A spokesperson for Jean-Bart has been contacted for comment.