On the eve of the start of the Olympic Games in Beijing, the Azerbaijan Field Hockey Federation and the Azerbaijan Olympic Committee have filed a third application to the Court of Arbitration in Sport. The Court has set up an ‘ad hoc’ division in Beijing to settle disputes in the run up and during the Games. Judgements were handed down on the first and second applications as recently as the 2nd and 5th August respectively.
The original application asked the Court to overturn the decision of the FIH Disciplinary Committee in failing to disqualify the Spanish women’s hockey team from the Olympics on grounds of doping. The Court ruled that the applicants were not a competent party to make such an application as FIH disciplinary rules only permitted appeals by the parties directly involved in the original hearing. The Azerbaijanis attempted to circumnavigate this ruling by making an application to the effect that the FIH should have appealed against the decision of its own disciplinary body. This application was also dismissed.
The third application asked the court to rule that procedural fairness should have allowed the applicants to be parties to the original disciplinary hearing. The Court has dismissed this application.
We predicted that this matter would roll on and on. In a recent article on the Azerbaijan news web site Today.az it was being advocated that the Azerbaijani companies that sponsor the FIH and the European Hockey Federation (EHF), should withdraw their sponsorship in protest against the FIH decision. Their anger against the EHF seems to stem from the fact that the president of the EHF, Leandro Negre, is Spanish.
