CAS SENDS JFA’S MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION TO UEFA CONGRESS FOR CONSIDERATION

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has issued its decision in the arbitration procedure between the Jersey Football Association (JFA) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) relating to the UEFA Executive Committee’s decision of 1 September 2016 to reject JFA’s application for UEFA membership.

The CAS Panel has 1) set aside the UEFA EC Decision and ordered that JFA’s application be forwarded to the UEFA Congress for consideration and 2) dismissed JFA’s request to “take all necessary measures to admit the JFA as a full member of UEFA without delay”.

In December 2015, JFA submitted an application for UEFA membership to the UEFA administration. In September 2016, UEFA issued a decision informing JFA that its application had been discussed by the UEFA Executive Committee and that a decision had been taken not to forward the application to the UEFA Congress since the admission criteria were not clearly satisfied.

JFA filed an appeal against this decision at the CAS. The case was referred to a Panel of CAS arbitrators composed of José Maria Alonso Puig, President (Spain), Dr Dirk-Reiner Martens (Germany), and Dr Jan Räker (Germany). A hearing was held at the CAS headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland on 28 June 2017.

The CAS Panel noted that the competent body for the consideration of membership applications is the UEFA Congress and not the UEFA Executive Committee.

This is the reason why the appeal is partially upheld and that JFA’s application must be forwarded to the UEFA Congress for decision.

However, the Panel concluded that, when deciding on whether to order the UEFA Congress to “take all necessary measures to admit the JFA as a full member of UEFA without delay”, the Panel cannot proceed as requested by the JFA because the UEFA Congress has discretionary powers to admit new members, and it is the Panel’s understanding that, on the basis of the evidence provided, JFA does not fulfil the requirements of Article 5(1) of the UEFA Statutes to be admitted as a member of UEFA.