Yves Jean-Bart: former Haiti football boss cleared

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has ruled in favor of Yves Jean-Bart, the former president of the Haitian football federation (FHF), and overturned his lifetime ban from football, effectively clearing him of charges of sexual abuse.

In a statement, CAS said that the 75-year-old's ban had been "annulled due to insufficient evidence to establish the existence of violations of the FIFA rules."

Jean-Bart, nicknamed Dadou, had taken his appeal to the world's highest sports court after FIFA's ethics committee found him guilty in November 2020 of sexually abusing and harassing young female players at Haiti's national training center. In addition to the lifetime ban, he had been fined 1 million Swiss francs (€1.01m, $1.08m).

The hearing took place in March last year and was presided over by a three-person panel. CAS said numerous witnesses gave evidence to the panel, including some who were given special protective measures.

The panel was unanimous in its ruling, noting "inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the statements of the victims and witnesses presented by FIFA." It also cast doubt on evidence provided by FIFPRO, the global players' union, and Human Rights Watch, which has been supporting the alleged victims.

Concluding, the panel said that it considered the evidence against Jean-Bart to be "inconsistent, unclear and contradictory, and that, as a result, it is not sufficient to establish a violation" of FIFA's code of ethics.

In a statement, Jean-Bart said: "Three years after being falsely accused, I have awaited this day when my honor could be fully restored. I am grateful to God, my family, legal counsel, and all of those stood with me through this difficult process while I defended myself against these baseless, maliciously motivated smears."

FIFA has been approached for comment.

Human Rights Watch: 'a travesty of justice'

In reaching its 2020 verdict, FIFA said that Jean-Bart had "created a very complex and extremely harmful system of sexual abuse and exploitaton of female players." Its investigators found that his abuse had ranged from "inappropriate touching, to sexual harassment and abuse and, in the worst case to rape (and forced abortion)."

But after CAS overturned his ban, Minky Worden, a director at HRW, told DW that the verdict was a "travesty of justice" and spoke of devastation among the alleged victims.

"This decision shows the utter failure of the sports system to protect and respect survivors of sexual abuse, and to protect them from violent threats," she said, adding: "CAS is supposed to deliver rapid justice to athletes. Three years after survivors reported abuse to FIFA, it's done just the opposite."

In the year that the FIFA Women's World Cup is set to take place, Worden added: "This is such an abject failure to deliver some tiny measure of justice to the survivors who courageously called out Jean-Bart's abuse."

Meanwhile, on Thursday, FIFPRO said it was "deeply disappointed to learn of CAS's decision" and criticized the protections afforded to the witnesses.

It wrote: "In light of the serious, explicit and extensively documented threats received by those asked to give evidence, and CAS's failure to offer basic anonymity protection such as voice distortion, how does it anticipate ever being able to procure adequate evidence to discipline powerful alleged perpetrators?"

The allegations first appeared in the British newspaper The Guardian in April 2020. DW also reported extensively on Jean-Bart's alleged abuse, revealing in October of that year that he was still running the FHF, despite a ban.

With the CAS decision final, Jean-Bart will now be free to pick up from where he left off.

Edited by Matt Ford