PCB reacts sharply to CAS letter

ISLAMABAD: While challenging the jurisdiction of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) strongly refuted claims for the start of Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar’s appeal case in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), writes Abdul Mohi Shah.
In a hard-hitting reply to a letter received on Friday from the CAS, PCB Chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf said that the court had no legal or moral right to approach the PCB.
The content of the letter available exclusively to ‘The News’ says: “It seems to us to be direly plain that the CAS lacks jurisdiction to entertain any appeal and WADA lacked the standing to launch one. Therefore we do not understand how you can entertain such an application still less make peremptory orders providing for compliance within short time scales over the holiday period,” the letter addressed by the PCB to CAS’s David Caslerly says.
Moreover the chairman said, “We would not abide by any orders made by any CAS panel as we do not wish to take any step which might be seen as having accepted that CAS has jurisdiction.”
The reply came following a letter received by the PCB headquarters in Lahore from one David Caslerly of Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Caslerly in his letter addressed to the PCB chairman demanded all the relevant material and dates suited to the board for the start of Shoaib and Asif case hearing in CAS.
While Shoaib was banned for two years, Asif got one year ban for using performance-enhancing drugs called nandrolone.
Both Shoaib and Asif were cleared of charges by appeal panel a month after ban was imposed by the PCB commission headed by Barrister Shahid Hamid. The day the two were given reprieve by the PCB appeal panel, the matter was taken up by WADA, which filed an appeal against the lifting of the ban in Luciana-based court.
However, the PCB always maintained that WADA or the CAS has no jurisdiction to hear such an appeal.
“The PCB is not a signatory of WADA code and thus does not abide by its rules.”
It is also strange to note that while almost all the European courts are closed due to the Christmas and New Year holidays, the CAS still pursues the appeal matter to possibly appease WADA or those who are interested in solving the case at earliest.
Asif on Friday was named in the Pakistan team for the tour of South Africa while fitness problems kept Shoaib out.