Sun Yang: Franco Frattini dog meat tweets saw CAS ban overturned, Swiss Court says

President of panel for Court of Arbitration for Sport’s tweeted about Chinese dog meat festival and ‘yellow faces’

Swiss Federal Supreme Court says the Chinese swimmer did not get an impartial hearing

Reading Time:2 minutes

Chinese swimming star Sun Yang at the Court of Arbitration for Sport public hearing in Montreux, Switzerland in 2019. Photo: EPA

Published: 3:26pm, 16 Jan 2021Updated: 4:25pm, 16 Jan 2021

The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland has explained the reason why it overturned the original ruling from Chinese star swimmer Sun Yang’s hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, saying that CAS panel president Franco Frattini had shown a possible bias against Chinese people.

The 29-year-old swimmer, who was originally banned for eight years by CAS last February, filed an appeal with the SFT that April.

Switzerland’s highest court, which has the power to overturn rulings made by the Lausanne-based CAS, found in Sun’s favour last month

They explained their reasoning on Friday in a statement, declaring that the former Italian foreign minister had exhibited an anti-China bias on Twitter in posts made in 2018 and 2019. Therefore Sun did not get the impartial hearing he was entitled to.

China's Sun Yang wearing headphones before the final of the men's 200m freestyle event at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. Photo: AFP

“In his tweets, the arbitrator castigates a Chinese practice of dog slaughter and denounces the consumption of this meat at a local festival in China,” the statement said.

“Some expressions refer to the skin colour of certain Chinese people he targets,” it added. “In addition, the arbitrator also made the said remarks in tweets after his appointment as president of the panel of arbitrators deciding in the Sun Yang case.