Today we will discuss the case of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) about Neymar and his Instagram story, which led to the trial (Arbitration CAS 2019/A/6367 Paris Saint-Germain & Neymar Da Silva Santos Junior v. Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA), award of 17 February 2020).
On March 6, 2019, a match was played between Paris Saint-Germain (hereinafter referred to as PSG) and Manchester United (hereinafter referred to as MU). This was the second leg in the round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League. Neymar had an ankle injury, so he did not play in that match for his club (PSG), but sat in the stands watching the match as a spectator.
By the thirtieth minute, the overall score was 3:2 in favor of PSG. In the first minute of added time in the second half, MU struck at the PSG goal. The kick was blocked by PSG. After a few seconds, the referee stopped the game and indicated that he had been contacted by a video assistant who recommended that he view the video of the blocked goal. After completing the review, the referee awarded a penalty to the MU. The penalty was implemented by the MU, resulting in an overall score of 3-3. Given the three away goals of MU compared to PSG's two away goals, MU moved on to the next round of the competition, while PSG were eliminated from the tournament.
Immediately after the match Neymar posted a photo of the blocked goal on his Instagram account with the following text in Portuguese:
Isso é uma vergonha!!
Ainda colocam 4 caras que não entendem de futebol pra ficar olhando lance em camera lenta … Isso não existe!!!
Como o cara vai colocar a mão de costas? Ah vá pá pqp.
The parties to this case began to argue about the translation of this phrase. PSG and Neymar claimed that this text is translated into English as follows:
It’s a disgrace!!
They’ve actually put four guys who do not know anything about football to just stand and watch the kick in slow motion … Are they for real?!!
How is the guy going to put his hand on his back? Oh, for [God’s] OR [f**k’s] sake!
UEFA argued that the translation should be different:
This is a disgrace!!
They put four guys who know nothing about football to watch the incident in slow motion … It can’t be!!!
How can he handle the ball when his back’s turned? Oh, go f**k yourselves.
This publication immediately became available to a huge number of people, as at that time Neymar had 110 million followers on Instagram. Disciplinary proceedings have begun in UEFA in relation to this publication of Neymar. PSG and Neymar have issued written apologies for the situation.
As a result, Neymar was suspended for 3 matches, which he could have played in competitions under the auspices of UEFA. This decision was appealed to CAS.
The CAS arbitrator in the question of translation of the text of the publication considered that the translation of UEFA is still more correct than the translation of Neymar and PSG. He took into account the opinions of expert linguists and how the public in social networks and the media perceived this phrase, and everyone saw the meaning in it, which is also contained in the translation of UEFA.
The Arbitrator then considered whether Articles 11 and 15 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations should be applied in this case. Article 11 "General principles of conduct" states the following:
Member associations and clubs, as well as their players, officials and members, and all persons assigned by UEFA to exercise a function, must respect the Laws of the Game, as well as UEFA’s Statutes, regulations, directives and decisions, and comply with the principles of ethical conduct, loyalty, integrity and sportsmanship.
Article 15 is called "Misconduct of players and officials".
The Sole Arbitrator concurs with UEFA’s view that Article 15 is lex specialis vis-à-vis Article 11. Article 15 provides on the one hand for harsher sanctioning, but applies on the other hand only in the context of “competition matches”. In the Sole Arbitrator’s opinion it makes sense to provide harsher sanctions in such contexts, because misbehaviour in the context of a match competition will – in principle – arouse much more attention from either spectators or the media. Consequently, misbehaviour displayed in connection with “match competitions” will bring about greater harm to the interests of UEFA. Consequently, a player is under a higher duty of loyalty and correct behaviour while in the spotlight of competition matches. Also, according to the Arbitrator, the term "competition match" includes not only what happens on the field, but also what happens in the stadium, before the game, after the game, including the press conference after the match, so the situation with the publication of Neymar fits this term.
But did this publication apply to match officials? According to Neymar, he thought the video assistants were not match officials. But the Arbitrator drew attention to the fact that Neymar is a professional and experienced player, and it is unlikely that he was not aware of the status of video assistants. But the study of this issue is not important, because the application of Article 15 does not require the player to understand the status of certain persons in the match.
When assessing the gravity of the infraction, the Sole Arbitrator finds that he must follow an objective standard. Thus, it is not important how a specific social group might interpret the Statements. It may well be true that certain social groups or nationalities are more resilient or willing to put up with worse behaviour than others. However, this cannot be the decisive threshold. Instead, the Statements must be interpreted and assessed from the viewpoint of an objective third person, not least in order to ensure equal treatment of all stakeholders.
What clearly tips the scale, and turns the Statements into a breach of Article 15(1) lit. b is the final sentence (“Ah vá …”). Such an outburst is absolutely inacceptable, independently of the circumstances of the individual case, i.e. the emotions involved, the significance and scope of the decision at stake and/or the questionableness of said decision.
To conclude, the Sole Arbitrator finds that the Player did not err with respect to the content and effects of his post. It is equally true that the Player did not show genuine remorse. Neither in his letter to the EDI nor in these proceedings did he express true regret. In addition, he did not remove the post from Instagram when confronted with its impact. The only thing the Player did was to acknowledge that he misbehaved (“I let my feelings take over”, “I regret the post, because I did not behave professionally, but only like a fan”). However, he failed to formulate an apology vis-à-vis the umpires, the VAR officials or UEFA. The lack of remorse, however, is not an aggravating circumstance.
To conclude, therefore, the Sole Arbitrator finds that there are no facts before him that warrant a harsher or more lenient sanction than a suspension of two matches.
The main thing that all professional athletes should learn from this case is that you should never publish anything bad related to sports on social networks. And in general, every professional athlete should have a PR specialist who should consult an athlete before making publications or statements in the media and on social networks.
Sources: https://www.uefa.com ; https://www.tas-cas.org/en/index.html