Case of Oleg Oriekhov

Lausanne, 18 January 2011 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rendered its final decision in the arbitration between the Ukrainian referee Oleg Oriekhov and the Union Européenne de Football Association (UEFA). The CAS has confirmed the decision of the UEFA Appeals Body of 8 July 2010.

On 5 November 2009, the referee Oleg Oriekhov officiated a match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia in group E of the 2009-2010 UEFA Europa League. FC Basel won the match with a score of 3-1. Following investigations conducted by the public prosecutor of Bochum (Germany), it appeared that Oleg Oriekhov was in contact with a criminal group involved in betting fraud and that he was offered an amount of approximately EUR 50'000 to manipulate the match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia. At the end of an internal procedure at UEFA, the UEFA Appeals Body considered that Mr Oriekhov had violated the principles of conduct and his duty to disclose illicit approaches, set out in the UEFA regulations, in failing to immediately report to UEFA that he had received offers from certain individuals to take an active part in their match-fixing scheme. The UEFA Appeals Body concluded that a life ban on exercising any football-related activity was the appropriate sanction to be imposed upon Oleg Oriekhov in view of the seriousness of the situation.

On 17 July 2010, Oleg Oriekhov filed an appeal with the CAS to request the annulment of the UEFA decision. The case was referred to a Panel of CAS arbitrators composed of Mr Michael Beloff, QC, United Kingdom (President), Mr Denis Oswald, Switzerland and Mr José Juan Pintó, Spain. A hearing was held in Lausanne on 15 December 2010, during which the parties, their legal representatives and their witnesses were heard.

The CAS Panel confirmed the UEFA Decision and concluded that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that there were repeated contacts between Oleg Oriekhov and the members of a criminal group involved in match-fixing and betting fraud. In particular, it has been convincingly established that Oleg Oriekhov had been contacted before and after the match in Basel by persons who offered him money to manipulate the results of the match. The CAS Panel considered that Oleg Oriekhov deliberately violated the principles of conduct provided by the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations as he did not inform UEFA immediately of the existence of such contacts. The Panel rejected the arguments of Mr Oriekhov by which he explained that he did not report the contacts because of his inadequate command of English and because he was not aware of to whom he should make such a report. The CAS Panel concluded that, in such circumstances, a life ban from any football-related activity was a proportionate sanction.

The existence or not of an effective manipulation concerning the Europa League match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia could not be established during the CAS procedure.

The award with the grounds will be published on the CAS website (www.tas-cas.org) very shortly.