Nyantakyi’s lifetime ban reduced to 15 years with $100,000 dollars fine
The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), reduced the lifetime ban on former Ghana Football Association President, Kwesi Nyantakyi, to 15 years.
The 500,000 Swiss Francs ($500,000) fine imposed on the former CAF 1st Vice President has also been reduced to 100,000 Swiss Francs ($100,000) to be paid within 30 days upon receipt of an arbitral award.
Earlier this week, a report from the Multimedia sports crew noted that the lifetime ban being reduced to 12 years, however, the actual figure is 15 years.
It will be recalled that CAS’s initial decision took effect on October 29, 2018, taking the 15 year ban to 2033.
This means Nyantakyi is banned from all football-related activities for 13 years, having already served two years.
Nyantakyi, on December 17, 2018, appealed a lifetime ban imposed on him in October 2018 by the FIFA Independent Ethics Committee, following the premiere of an exposé into alleged corruption and match-fixing in June same year.
The case, which was registered as ‘CAS 2018/A/6072 Kwesi Nyantakyi v. FIFA’ in the CAS system was ruled on April 9, 2020 per Joy Sports checks at CAS.
The appeal was heard by the CAS panel on July 4, 2019, and they upheld the decision of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Commitee partially.
CAS was expected to award the decision on November 30, but the lawyers of Nyantakyi raised an objection to the composition of the panel on the grounds that one of the members has worked with FIFA, and they believed a conflict of interest case could have arisen.
The decision rendered by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee on 29 October 2018 was amended as follows:
“Kwesi Nyantakyi is banned from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level (administrative, sports or any other) for a period of fifteen (15) years, commencing on 29 October 2018. Kwesi Nyantakyi is fined the sum of CHF 100,000, to be paid within thirty (30) days of notification of the award.”
The lawyers of Nyantakyi appear unhappy with the decision of the panel and are contesting it at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
They had argued that the bans on former FIFA and UEFA Presidents, Joseph Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, were eight and nine years respectively despite the gravity of their crimes.
The CAS panel admitted that this argument was sound, but insisted he had ‘brought the image of football into disrepute’.
In addition to this, his lawyers, confident that the panel had been unfair with their judgement, proceeded to the Swiss Supreme Court in May 2020 to have the CAS decision overturned.
This move means that the current ruling has been set aside as the case will take its full course, with documents filed afresh as it did before the CAS panel.
CAS, in an email response (attached) to the Multimedia sports team on October 9, said “the arbitral award is expected to be published in the CAS jurisprudence database in the coming weeks.”
Source: Joy Sports