The entire world witnessed the disqualification of Mourad Aliev during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This decision was widely criticized by all stakeholders in the sports world.

Mourad Aliev (France) and Frazer Clarke (Great Britain) faced off on August 1, 2021, in the quarter-finals of the Olympic Amateur Boxing Tournament in the over 91 kg category. Mourad Aliev won the first round, having been declared the winner by three of the five judges.

During the second round, following a cut above Frazer Clarke’s eyebrow, the referee said “Time.” The clock was stopped with four seconds remaining in the round. The referee then decided to issue a warning to Mourad Aliev for allegedly delivering multiple headbutts to his opponent.

Subsequently, the fight was stopped, and Frazer Clarke was declared the winner. The results sheet confirmed that the referee had ruled Mourad Aliev’s disqualification.

Following the fight, Mourad Aliev contested his disqualification with the IOC BTF (the Boxing Task Force of the International Olympic Committee). On the same day, the director of the IOC BTF rejected this appeal, stating that the video review procedure did not apply to the Olympic Tournament according to amendments made to Rule 20 of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) by the IOC BTF. As a result, the referee’s decision made in the ring was upheld.

Mourad Aliev, the French Boxing Federation, and the CNOSF (hereinafter referred to as "the claimants") then took the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), requesting the annulment of the disqualification decision made by the referee, which had just been confirmed by the IOC BTF Director. The claimants sought to have the fight resume from the beginning of the second round with a different referee and judges.

To support their claim, the claimants argued that the fight’s referee had committed at least a "technical refereeing error" by incorrectly applying AIBA Rules. According to the claimants, a distinction should be made between a "technical refereeing error," which could be subject to review by a legal body since the referee had no discretion in its application, and a "refereeing error," which could not be reviewed since it fell within the referee’s discretionary authority.

It is important to recall that the Olympic Games Arbitration Rules provide in Article 1 that an arbitration request may be submitted to CAS against a decision made by the International Olympic Committee, a National Olympic Committee, an international federation, or the Olympic Games Organizing Committee.

The ad hoc Chamber, a specialized CAS body established at the Olympic Games site, is responsible for ruling on disputes submitted to it and issuing a decision within a timeframe compatible with the organization of such a competition.

In this case, the CAS ad hoc Chamber had to determine whether the disqualification decision by the IOC BTF could be annulled under the narrow scope of violating the law, federation regulations, or general legal principles. CAS had previously emphasized that it must refrain from reviewing technical decisions, based on the principle that "the game should not be constantly interrupted by appeals to judges" (ATF 118 II 12/19 Kindle v. FMS).

The claimants did not allege any violation of the law but argued that several federation rules had been breached, constituting a "technical refereeing error" that could be reviewed by a legal body since the referee had no discretionary authority.

The defendants (namely Frazer Clarke, IOC BTF, and the British Olympic Association) countered that the arbitration request was frivolous, as it was clearly an attempt to challenge a game rule decision, which is prohibited under consistent CAS jurisprudence. This jurisprudence states that CAS arbitrators refrain from reviewing decisions made on the field by referees or officials enforcing game rules unless there is evidence that the rules were applied arbitrarily or in bad faith (CAS OG 16/028 and CAS JO 96/006).

The arbitration panel relied on this established jurisprudence to render its decision. The CAS ad hoc Chamber ruled that the claimants had provided no evidence to demonstrate that Mourad Aliev’s disqualification resulted from fraud, bad faith, or corruption by the referee.

The claimants themselves acknowledged to CAS that this was not a case of corruption or bad faith but rather a lack of experience on the part of the fight referee who disqualified Mourad Aliev.

To justify its decision, the CAS ad hoc Chamber also emphasized that "this doctrine of game rules, established as a fundamental principle of lex sportiva, is justified by the need to preserve the finality and certainty of sports results under the authority of event referees, the lack of technical expertise among arbitration panel members, the need to avoid competition interruptions, and the necessity of limiting the risk of overwhelming the legal field with revision and rewriting requests for sports results (CAS 2015/A/4208)."

Given the available evidence and its consistent jurisprudence on the matter, the CAS ad hoc Chamber unsurprisingly rejected the request to annul Mourad Aliev’s disqualification. However, and this is one of the most significant aspects of this August 3, 2021, ruling, CAS urged the IOC BTF to take measures to prevent such errors from occurring in the future. One such measure would be video assistance, which has proven highly useful in sports such as fencing, rugby, and basketball.

CAS stated:

"Nevertheless, after reviewing the fight footage and the results sheet, the ad hoc Panel does not rule out the possibility of significant refereeing errors accompanied by a lack of information and transparency toward Mourad Aliev. These serious doubts and lack of clarity at such a high level of competition lead the Panel to highlight the importance of the IOC BTF’s role in ensuring that such errors, if they indeed occurred in the disputed match, do not happen again."

Should we conclude that CAS arbitrators implicitly recognized that Mourad Aliev was the victim of a "mistake" by the fight referee (as the boxer himself claimed to various journalists after leaving the ring)? Certainly, even though, as previously stated, CAS must issue a legally sound and well-reasoned decision.

The CNOSF has already expressed its intention to implement video assistance in boxing matches in preparation for the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

The willingness of governing bodies to adapt sports regulations to prevent future errors is commendable, as it upholds the values that sport and the Olympic spirit should embody.