News coming out of Spain today reports that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has agreed to review the appeal of Luis Suarez’s ban for biting Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay’s World Cup Group D encounter with Italy.
If Suarez’s appeal is successful, he would be able to play in Barcelona’s opening match of the La Liga season versus Elche on August 25.
The CAS is an international quasi-judicial body that was established to settle any disputes related to sport. Its headquarters are located in Lausanne, which is a city in Romandy; the French-speaking part of Switzerland. And its courts are located in New York, Sydney and Lausanne.
An example of a CAS ruling occurred a few weeks ago when the international body upheld in part the appeals filed by the Jamaican sprinters Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson against the Jamaica anti-doping disciplinary panel, which imposed a suspension of 18 months on both of them.
Both athletes had filed appeals at CAS against their 18-month suspension. They put forward that the offense committed was minor because it was caused by contamination of the food supplement “Epiphany D1” by the banned substance Oxilofrine and requested that the suspensions be reduced to 3 months.
The CAS decided to reduce their period of ineligibility to 6 months, which had already been already served.
Suarez appeal is set to be reviewed in early August.
