Butt and Asif lose appeals

Pakistan players were banned for spot-fixing in 2010

Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif have lost their appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over bans handed down for spot-fixing.

The International Cricket Council banned Butt for 10 years, with five suspended, and Asif for seven years, with two suspended, for their role in the spot-fixing scandal that also involved team-mate Mohammad Amir.

The 28-year-old Butt was named as the orchestrator of a plot to bowl deliberate no-balls in the Lord’s Test against England in 2010, with Asif and Amir the men who delivered them.

A Court of Arbitration for Sport statement read: “The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed the appeals filed by the Pakistani cricket players Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt against the decisions taken by the International Cricket Council Tribunal on 5 February 2011 in which Mr Asif received seven years ineligibility (two suspended) and Mr Butt ten years (five suspended) following an investigation into spot-fixing in relation to ”no balls“ bowled during a Test Match played in London in 2010.”

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According to CAS, former Test captain Butt did not contest his liability in the case but had requested a shortening of the ban.

The statement said: “The CAS panel was not persuaded that the sanction imposed by the ICC Tribunal was disproportionate, nor that any of the mitigating factors advanced by Mr Butt qualified as exceptional circumstances.”

Asif, 30, had requested the annulment of the ICC’s decision on procedural grounds.

Today’s statement said: “The CAS Panel found that there was no evidence advanced by Mr Asif which clearly exculpated him and that his submissions did not break the chain of circumstantial evidence or in any way undermine the reasoning contained in the ICC Tribunal’s decision.

“For those reasons, the Panel was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Asif was a party to the spot-fixing conspiracy.”