Lazio midfielder Matuzalem has received a boost this week with the news that he does not risk a lengthy playing ban.
After a lengthy legal dispute between former clubs Shakhtar Donetsk and Real Zaragoza over the now 31-year-old’s 2007 free transfer from the Ukrainians to the Spanish, both Zaragoza and the player were ruled in 2009 responsible for illegally breaking his contract.
Lazio midfielder Matuzalem has received a boost this week with the news that he does not risk a lengthy playing ban.
After a lengthy legal dispute between former clubs Shakhtar Donetsk and Real Zaragoza over the now 31-year-old’s 2007 free transfer from the Ukrainians to the Spanish, both Zaragoza and the player were ruled in 2009 responsible for illegally breaking his contract.
As a result, both parties have since been held accountable for a transfer fee of approximately €12m. Whilst this situation remains so, FIFA and the Court of Arbitration’s more recent ruling that failure to meet payments would result in the player picking up a ban has been thrown out by a Swiss court this week.
“The CAS decision has been annulled because it is incompatible with the public order,” a statement from the Swiss court revealed this week.
“An unlimited ban from exercising his profession, such as the one with which the player was threatened, constitutes a manifest and serious attack on the rights of the individual.
“If he did not make the payments imposed on him, he would be at the mercy of his former employer to such an extent that the base of his financial existence would be put in danger.”
It means that if Matuzalem pays the money owed or not, it will not affect his availability for Edy Reja’s Lazio.