By Adedapo Adesanya
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has reduced the life ban of former Nigerian national team coach, Samson Siasia, for a match-fixing affair to five years.
The court ruled that the life ban, imposed by the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) in April 2019 after Mr Siaisia was found guilty of agreeing to join a match-fixing ring in 2010, was “disproportionate”.
The CAS ruling upheld the guilty verdict but reduced the length of the ban and set aside the additional fine of 50,000 Swiss francs ($54,000).
In a statement, the Court ruled that “The panel determined the imposition of a life ban to be disproportionate for a first offence which was committed passively and which had not had an adverse or immediate effect on football stakeholders.”
CAS added that a five-year ban would be placed on the former Super Eagle player, saying that the fine was dropped as the panel felt it would be inappropriate and excessive on top of the ban, noting that Mr Siasia had not benefitted financially and had been hit in the pocket by not being able to work in football.
It wrote, “The imposed fine of CHF 50,000 on Mr Siasia is set aside. The panel determined the imposition of a life ban to be disproportionate for a first offence which was committed passively and which had not had an adverse or immediate effect on football stakeholders, and that a five-year ban would still achieve the envisaged aim of punishing the infringement committed by Mr Siasia.
“The panel acknowledged the need for sanctions to be sufficiently high enough to eradicate bribery and especially match-fixing in football.
“However, the panel considered in the particular circumstances of this matter that it would be inappropriate and excessive to impose a financial sanction in addition to the five-year ban, since the ban sanction already incorporated a financial punishment in eliminating football as a source of revenue for Mr Siasia, and considering that Mr Siasia had not obtained any gain or pecuniary benefit from his unethical behaviour.”
His suspension from any football-related activity nationally or internationally is backdated to August 16, 2019, and runs until 2024.
The former striker played 51 times for Nigeria, including at the 1994 World Cup, and won a French Championship medal with Nantes in 1995.
He was the coach of Nigeria between 2010 and 2011 and took the Nigerian U-23 team to the Rio Olympics in 2016.
Mr Siasia was caught after a wider investigation involving Mr Wilson Raj Perumal, who confessed to international match-fixing.
Mr Perumal, a Singaporean national, was arrested and jailed in Finland in 2011 for fixing top-tier football games in his country to which he later collaborated with investigators to name others.
