Swiss federal judges have dismissed Fifa’s appeal against a ruling that overturned its life ban for the former president of Haiti’s football federation for alleged sexual abuse of women’s national team players.
A verdict from Switzerland’s supreme court released last week rejected Fifa’s request filed in March to annul a court of arbitration for sport ruling that lifted Yves Jean-Bart’s expulsion from the sport.
The federal court can review CAS decisions on limited procedural grounds and rarely overturns the sports court’s verdicts. Fifa argued that Cas judges failed to evaluate some evidence and raised concerns over “very serious procedural and substantive flaws” in the verdict.
The decision by three Swiss Federal Tribunal judges was dated 28 June, less than a month before Haiti makes its debut at the Women’s World Cup against England in Brisbane. Haiti’s group also includes China and Denmark.
The Haitian women progressed through qualifying for the tournament, being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, while the longtime federation president Jean-Bart was banished from the sport.
Fifa’s ethics committee banned Jean-Bart in November 2020 after hearing allegations of multiple sexual offences against women and girls who were in national team squads. Witnesses in Haiti were alleged to have been threatened to not give evidence.
Jean-Bart denied the allegations and at his appeal the judges decided in February that “none of the testimonies heard by Cas were sufficiently precise and convincing to establish (his) guilt”.
Ffa was ordered by federal judges to pay 15,000 Swiss francs (£13,200) in court costs and 17,000 Swiss francs (£15,000) to Jean-Bart.
