2018 Asian Games - First case heard by CAS
Press Release
22nd August 2018
The ad hoc Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has registered its first arbitration procedure related to the 2018 Asian Games.
Four national golf associations (Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan) submitted applications challenging the decision taken on 16 August 2018 by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) not to enforce the Technical Guidelines for golf preventing the participation of professional golf players in the Asian Games. These 4 associations were joined later by the golf associations of the Philippines and of India and the six applications have been consolidated. The Respondent is the OCA. The national golf associations of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Macau and Uzbekistan have been identified as having possibly registered professional golf players and have joined the procedure as Interested Parties.
This CAS case has been submitted to a Panel of arbitrators composed of:
Mr Anthony Lo Surdo (Australia), President
Mr Enrico Ingles (Philippines), arbitrator
Mr Jahangir Baglari (I.R. Iran), arbitrator
The Panel held a hearing with the parties in person and via telephone conference in the evening of 20 August 2018, from 21:00 to 01:50 at the offices of the CAS ad hoc Division in Jakarta.
The CAS Panel rejected the applications after being satisfied that, on the basis of the evidence submitted at the hearing and after the hearing, none of the players nominated by the NOCs of Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Macau and Sri Lanka for participation in the 18th Asian Games golfing competitions were professional. In the end, the applications became moot in the absence of any juridical foundation to further challenge the OCA Decision.
The full award with the grounds will be published shortly.
