Shakhtar CEO Sergei Palkin commented on the lawsuit against FIFA.
Sergei Palkin. Photo by V. Rasner- The CAS has dismissed your appeal. You have no tools left to appeal against the decision. If the suspended players want to transfer to other clubs, can Shakhtar make money for them?
- We lost the trial only because it was impossible to win it against FIFA. Because the set of referees represented there is a different formula when FIFA appear. That is, when FIFA is not there, it works in one direction, but when it is there, the formula for selecting judges is different.
And it is structured in such a way that people who are loyal to FIFA sit on the court. Because CAS gets 80 percent of its income from FIFA. And there are people from FIFA on the CAS Supervisory Board. Therefore, it was impossible to get a correct decision there initially.
So now we will go to the Swiss Federal Court, the court which accepts cases if the CAS decision was wrong. We have also filed a complaint with the European Commission against FIFA because the decisions they have taken are contrary to the antimonopoly legislation on the conduct of football in Europe.
Those clubs who will take our players and sign them, we will go to court against them to make them pay us compensation.
- What would be better for you: to return those players who left or get money for them?
- We can do both, but at the moment we have neither the first nor the second option. We do not have a choice. If we had these players at our disposal, the sports results would be very different. It is a long process, it will take at least six months.
