‘Prima Facie’: the strange rule used to sanction Prestianni
UEFA have used a legal rule that allows for guilt to be “at first glance” and based on “sufficient evidence”.
The UEFA statement announcing the provisional suspension of Gianluca Prestianni for the match between Real Madrid and Benfica, for violating Article 14 of the regulations, included a legal term that is central to the case: prima facie. This Latin expression means “at first sight” or “based on a first impression”.
“In legal terms, it indicates that something appears certain or sufficiently established on the basis of the initial information available, even though it may still be open to further discussion,” explains Toni Roca, a lawyer specialising in sports law. In other words, UEFA only needed to assess the incident in order to impose an initial sanction, despite the fact that the sanctioned individual, in this case Prestianni, had argued otherwise.
It is highly unusual, almost unprecedented, for UEFA to issue a prima facie sanction, although it has happened before. In 2021, for example, a racism complaint involving Ondrej Kudela of Slavia Prague and Glen Kamara of Rangers was handled in a similar way. Faced with clear initial evidence, the Czech player was suspended for one match.
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Notably, on both occasions UEFA chose this legal course of action in cases involving racism. It is worth recalling that the organisation, chaired by Aleksander Ceferin, has consistently taken a firm stance against racism. It has launched numerous campaigns to combat it and has been uncompromising in addressing even the slightest ethical breach in this area.
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