Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif can heave a sigh of relief as the Court
of Arbitration for Sport today dismissed an appeal by the World Anti-doping Agency
against the Pakistan Cricket Board's decision to overturn a doping ban on them.
The CAS said in its verdict that it rejected the WADA appeal at the "preliminary
level" since it had no jurisdiction to rule in the case.
The apex body for sports disputes, headquartered in Lausanne,
said an arbitral panel found that neither the PCB nor cricket's world body,
the International Cricket Council, had a "direct reference"
in their statutes providing for an appeal to the CAS.
"The CAS has considered that it has no jurisdiction to
decide the dispute between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Pakistan Cricket
Board, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif," CAS said in a release
posted on its website.
"Although the PCB had contested the jurisdiction of CAS
to hear this case, it was necessary for the CAS to constitute an arbitral Panel
to rule on its own jurisdiction as a preliminary matter," CAS said.
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