FIFA and CAS rapped over Matuzalem case

Hearing an appeal from Matuzalem, the court overturned a ruling by FIFA and CAS that the 31-year-old could be banned from playing if he missed compensation payments to former club Shakhtar Donetsk.

The court described that ruling as "fundamentally unlawful".

Matuzalem and Real Zaragoza were ordered by CAS in 2009 to pay Shakhtar Donetsk almost 12 million euros for breach of contract, following the player's move from Shakhtar to Zaragoza in 2007.

"The CAS decision has been annulled because it is incompatible with the public order," the Swiss court said in a statement.

"An unlimited ban from exercising his profession, such as the one with which the player was threatened, constitutes a manifest and serious attack on the rights of the individual," it said.

"If he did not make the payments imposed on him, he would be at the mercy of his former employer to such an extent that the base of his financial existence would be put in danger."

Matuzalem and Zaragoza still had to pay off the sum owed to the Ukrainian club plus interest of five percent a year, the court's judgement said.