The appeal lodged by former Malta international Kevin Sammut against his life ban from football was heard yesterday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) during a day-long session in Lausanne.
The hearing was originally scheduled to take place in October but had to be adjourned after self-confessed Croatian fraudster Marijo Cvrtak, the star witness in this case, informed CAS that he was unable to attend.
Sammut, capped 37 times by Malta, was slapped with a life ban from all football activity in November 2012 after the UEFA Appeals Board upheld the request of the UEFA disciplinary prosecutor who successfully challenged the 10-year suspension imposed by the Control and Disciplinary Body the previous summer.
The 32-year-old was sanctioned by UEFA after being found guilty of helping to fix the Euro 2008 qualifier between Norway and Malta, played at Oslo’s Ullevi Stadium in June 2007.
The match ended in a 4-0 win for Norway, who scored three times in the last 18 minutes. Sammut was substituted at half-time.
Cvrtak and Ante Sapina, the leader of the betting ring that allegedly rigged the Norway-Malta qualifier, testified during yesterday’s CAS hearing while the other witnesses summoned by Sammut’s lawyers, Lucio and Michael Sciriha, gave testimony through a video conference call.
The CAS is expected to deliver its ruling in the coming days.
Sammut, who was present for his appeal hearing yesterday, was the only Maltese player to be suspended by UEFA over the much-publicised match-rigging case which came to light in 2011 when Cvrtak, a prominent member of the notorious betting syndicate based in Germany, was giving testimony during his trial in Bochum.
Cvrtak and Sapina were sentenced to five years in prison for orchestrating the biggest match-fixing scandal in the history of football but the verdict was appealed by both sides and then declared null by a higher court which found several procedural errors.
The case was referred back to Bochum for a re-trial which began in December.
It later emerged that Cvrtak, who is also awaiting re-trial, had first mentioned the Norway-Malta game during questioning by the Bochum police.