CAS appeal
The decision arrived. You have twenty-one days.
Article R49 of the CAS Code gives you twenty-one days from receipt of the decision to file your statement of appeal. That period applies only where the statutes or regulations of the body concerned, or an earlier agreement between the parties, set no other period. The body’s own rule comes first, and it is often shorter. CAS does not extend this limit, and the Division President does not open a procedure where the appeal is late on its face.
Everest Sports Law works from Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp and Hasselt. We act for athletes, clubs and federations, and we take on cases that run before CAS in Lausanne. We read your decision and your statutes. We check whether CAS has jurisdiction, and then we file. The CAS working languages are French, English and Spanish, and Article R30 leaves you free to choose who represents you. A Belgian lawyer can therefore act for you without Swiss admission. We work in English, French and Dutch, and we set out our cost position before we begin.
What the twenty-one days have to settle
Six questions decide whether you have an appeal at all. Answer them in this order.
The deadline
Article R49 counts twenty-one days from receipt of the decision, unless the statutes or regulations of the body set another period. Article R32 is the reason you cannot move it. That article lets the President of the Panel or the Division President extend other time limits in the Procedural Rules, on justified grounds and before they expire, and it excludes the time limit for the statement of appeal. Your appeal brief is due within ten days after the appeal period ends, and Article R51 deems the appeal withdrawn if you miss that one.
What a statement of appeal is
An email saying that you appeal is not a statement of appeal. Article R48 requires you to name the respondent with a full address, attach a copy of the contested decision, state what you ask the panel to do, nominate an arbitrator or ask for a sole arbitrator, attach the provision that opens the appeal to CAS, and, where you want the sanction stopped meanwhile, apply to stay the execution of the decision with reasons. You pay the Court Office fee when you file. Where a document is missing, the Court Office may set a single short deadline to complete the statement of appeal. That is not a right. File complete.
Whether CAS can hear it
CAS hears your appeal only where the statutes, the regulations or a separate arbitration agreement open that route. Article S20 c. defines the Appeals Arbitration Division in those terms. Article R47 adds the second condition. That route opens only after you exhaust the internal remedies of the body concerned. Whether CAS can hear a purely national dispute therefore depends on the federation’s own statutes. Have this checked before anybody spends money on the case.
What the procedure costs
The Court Office fee is CHF 1,000 (about EUR 1,065) and CAS does not refund it. Article R65 makes the proceedings free of arbitration costs, but only for an appeal against a decision that is exclusively disciplinary and that an international federation or international sports body rendered. It does not reach a sanction imposed as a consequence of an economic dispute, and under Article R65.4 the Division President can still apply Article R64. A disciplinary decision of a national federation falls under Article R64, which carries an advance of costs. The CAS schedule ties the administrative costs to the amount in dispute, as a rule from CHF 100 to CHF 25,000 (about EUR 107 to EUR 26,625), and CAS can go above or below the table. You pay your own witnesses, experts and interpreters either way, and a losing appellant can still be ordered to contribute to the other side’s legal fees. The euro amounts use the European Central Bank reference rate of 3 September 2026.
Who pays nothing
CAS grants legal aid under its Guidelines on Legal Aid, and the request itself is free. It reaches a natural person whose income and assets cannot carry the costs of the procedure. It applies to Olympic-programme sports in an international matter, to football through the Football Legal Aid Fund, and to Ordinary, Anti-Doping and Appeal Division procedures. A federation, an association or a club falls outside it, except that the Football Legal Aid Fund can cover a club in category IV of the FIFA table, once per calendar year, only in a dispute with another club or with a federation, and never while the club is under judicial administration. Even with legal aid, the panel can order the beneficiary, at the end of the procedure, to contribute to the winning party’s legal fees.
In which language, and through whom
Article R29 names French, English and Spanish as the CAS working languages. Article R30 says that the parties may be represented or assisted by persons of their choice. Nowhere does the Code require your lawyer to hold Swiss admission. We plead for you in English or in French, without local co-counsel. A setting-aside appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal is a separate step under Swiss law, not under the CAS Code. We look at it separately.
What you do today
Prove the date of receipt
Your period runs from the day on which you receive the decision. The date printed on the decision does not start it. You count from the day after receipt, official holidays and non-working days inside the period count, and if the last day is a holiday or a non-business day where you send from, the period runs to the end of the next business day. Keep the envelope, the email with its headers, or the delivery receipt. If the other side later argues that your filing was out of time, that document is your answer.
Find the appeal clause
Open the statutes and the disciplinary regulations of your federation and look for the provision that opens an appeal to CAS. Without that provision or a separate arbitration agreement no route runs to Lausanne. The same text tells you which period applies and which internal step comes first.
Do not respond on the merits yet
Do not write to the federation about the facts or about fault. The other side will read back what you write today. Send us the decision, the statutes and the proof of receipt. We then tell you how much of the period is left and which route is open.
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