CAS rejects transparent booths
1 min read
On Thursday (yesterday), the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected an urgent request from FIFA presidential election candidate Jerome Champagne for the use of transparent voting booths and independent monitors in the FIFA elections scheduled on Friday, AFP reports.
Football’s governing body FIFA’s Ad-hoc Electoral Committee had earlier declined to incorporate the use of transparent voting booths for the upcoming FIFA presidential election in Zurich.
Champagne filed the appeal against this decision to the sport’s highest tribunal on February 24 “to safeguard the integrity of the voting process and to ensure that the vote is conducted in secret.”
His appeal was based on his objections the presence of UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and AFC (Asian Football Confederation) election scrutineers at the FIFA presidential elections which he felt would compromise the integrity of the process.
The president of the Lausanne-based tribunal’s Appeals Arbitration Division rejected the request. The grounds for the rejection will be communicated by CAS in a few days.
A similar request for transparent voting booths and independent scrutineers was made by another FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali Al Hussein of Jordan, on February 22. It was also rejected by CAS two days later.
