Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) has validated the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS), decision to ban Ghanaian referee Joseph Odartei Lamptey for life.
A statement from the world football governing body read that “FIFA has taken note of the motivated arbitral award of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirming the lifetime ban imposed by FIFA’s Disciplinary and Appeal Committees on Ghanaian match official Joseph Odartei Lamptey”.
“In its ruling, CAS concluded that Mr Lamptey had intentionally taken two wrong decisions with the sole purpose of enabling a specific number of goals to be scored that would make pertinent bets successful. CAS concluded that there was an obvious link between these intentionally wrong decisions and a deviation from an expected betting pattern, and consequently found Mr Lamptey guilty of having unlawfully influenced the result of the match,” the statement added.
According to FIFA, this gesture to validate CAS decision “underlines FIFA’s commitment to protecting the integrity of football and its zero-tolerance policy on match manipulation, while also highlighting the effectiveness of its current agreement with Sportradar that uses their Fraud Detection System, which played an important role in this case.”
FIFA’s judicial bodies had banned Mr Lamptey for life for breaching art. 69 par 1 (unlawfully influencing match results) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia qualifying match between South Africa and Senegal on 12 November 2016.
The ban resulted from a penalty he awarded to South Africa in a 2-1 win over Senegal in the said match.
He penalised Kalidou Koulibaly for handball, but replays showed the ball hit his knee.
Lamptey appealed to CAS to reverse FIFA’s earlier lifetime decision but failed in the attempt as CAS upheld FIFA’s decision.
Referee Lamptey, by the ban would not take part in any football-related activity, be it administrative, sports or any other at national and international level for life.
Source: GNA
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