Siasia’s FIFA Life Ban Reduced To Five Years

The Court of Arbitration for Sports on Monday reduced the life ban on former Super Eagles coach, Samson Siasia to five years.

The ex-Super Eagles forward was guilty of match fixing in 2019 which resulted in the ban and a fine of $50,000.

FIFA had in August 2019 announced that Siasa was guilty of receiving bribes to change the outcome of matches.

“Siasia was found guilty of having accepted that he would receive bribes in relation to the manipulation of matches that Perumal attempted to manipulate for betting purposes,” FIFA announced.

But CAS in its verdict said the ban was an extreme punishment for the offence of the Olympic medalist.

CAS said, “Mr Siasia is banned for 5 (five) years from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level (administrative, sports or any other) as of 16 August 2019.

“The imposed fine of CHF 50,000 (fifty thousand Swiss Francs) on Mr Siasia is set aside. The Panel determined the imposition of a life ban to be disproportionate for a first offence which was committed passively and which had not had an adverse or immediate effect on football stakeholders, and that a five-year ban would still achieve the envisaged aim of punishing the infringement committed by Mr Siasia.”

The Panel, however, admitted the need for sanctions to be sufficiently high enough to eradicate bribery and particularly match-fixing in football.

“However, the Panel considered in the particular circumstances of this matter that it would be inappropriate and excessive to impose a financial sanction in addition to the five-year ban, since the ban sanction already incorporated a financial punishment in eliminating football as a source of revenue for Mr Siasia, and considering that Mr Siasia had not obtained any gain or pecuniary benefit from his unethical behaviour,” CAS added.