Organizer banned 5 years by FIDE

Court of Arbitration for Sport Rules in favor of FIDE, Rejecting Touze Demands

FIDE v Touzé

The 2005 World Youth Championship was awarded to France and the organizer Mr Touzé, hosted the Championship in Belfort during July that year.

Based on the large number of serious complaints that FIDE received before, during and after the Championship, it became clear that the organization of the World Youth 2005 did not meet the standards required by FIDE for such a prestigious event.

The FIDE Executive Board (EB) meeting in Dresden 2005 unanimously decided not to award any FIDE event to Mr. Touzé for a period of 5 years because of the mismanagement of the event. It was also decided to refer the matter to FIDE Ethics Commission (EC) for further examination, although the EC recommended no additional measures to be taken.

In March 2006, Mr Touzé, being represented by his lawyer, sent an appeal to the FIDE Ethics Commission seeking its decision to overturn the EB ban to organize FIDE tournaments for the next 5 years.

In September 2006, Mr Touzé brought the case to The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) asking for 100 000 euros as compensation and also for the EB decision to be declared illegal and his rights reinstated.

The FIDE defense was partly procedural and partly material. FIDE argued that the appeal was too late, that a decision taken by EB can be overturned only by the FIDE General Assembly (GA) and that the Ethics Commission is not a general “Appeal Court” within the FIDE system. Therefore the CAS should not make a decision in the case since Mr Touzé so far, has not made an appeal to the GA and that sending his appeal to the EC was clearly to the “wrong address”.

In addition to the procedural issues, FIDE strongly argued that under any circumstances the World Youth 2005 was badly organized and way below the expected level.

In its ruling of 13 March 2006 the CAS decided that the appeal to the CAS is partly admissible in the way that it is not put forward too late according to deadlines for filing to the court.

However, on all remaining procedural issues CAS ruled in favor of FIDE by clearly stating that the Ethics Commission has no jurisdiction to change decisions made by the Executive Board. Since Mr Touzé still has the opportunity to appeal to the FIDE GA, the CAS will not consider the case and all claims from Mr Touzé were rejected.

Source: FIDE.com