Body which settles sporting disputes sets up in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi: The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) officially opened the Court of Arbitration for Sport's (CAS) first Alternate Hearing Centre at the Al Jazira Club yesterday.

CAS, which settles disputes in sport, has its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and also has offices in New York and Sydney.

Yesterday's launch is the first of three centres it plans to open in the Middle East and Asia.

Sultan Saeed Al Badi, Undersecretary of the ADJD, said: "The ADJD and CAS had signed the agreement in February under directions from Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department.

"This CAS centre in Abu Dhabi is a directive of Shaikh Mansour since it will help the department in achieving its strategic goals through improved judicial specialisation at local, regional and international levels. It will also support the development of sports in the region by raising professional and legal aspects of the field.

"We are looking forward to providing a platform of excellence to organise meetings, seminars and other activities related to the development and promotion of sports' legal aspects in the region."

John D. Coates, President of CAS, said the two other centres in the region will open later in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai.

"The UAE has a very, very impressive judicial department here that we understand is an evolution from the Sharia... that is looking after the society well. Sport is part of society and we were very keen to make our services available in the Middle East and I think this is a very good centre for it," the Australian told Gulf News.

Stability

"Increasingly the Middle East is going to be seen more and more. Abu Dhabi has the [Formula 1] grand prix here, Dubai has so many events, Qatar is getting ready for the World Cup. This is a very stable city, stable government and we are very comfortable being based here."

According to Coates, there were 365 cases registered with CAS in 2011 alone, 50 per cent of which related to football, mainly dealing with player transfers, breaches of contract and doping cases.

"What we have to do is to be able to provide an effective and a quick resolution of disputes and it is not practical for us to say to the parties ‘come to Lausanne' all the time. It is expensive.

"Now we can offer something here. The National Olympic Committees and the sports federations in the region, they can decide to use our services and we will come to them.

"There are 205 National Olympic Committees and each of them have around 35 national federations representing different sports. Then there are also non-Olympic sports and Paralympics. Apart from the summer and winter Olympics, we have the Asian Games, African Games, Pan American Games, South Pacific Games and Youth Olympics. Sport is growing at a tremendous pace in the region."

Yousuf Saeed Al Ebri, Attorney-General of Abu Dhabi, Mahmoud Al Mohammad, Abu Dhabi Sports Council General Secretary, Matthieu Reeb, CAS General Secretary, along with senior officials from the UAE Olympic Association and other federations attended the opening ceremony.