Peru captain Paolo Guerrero has won a last-ditch appeal to play at the World Cup despite being suspended after testing positive for traces of cocaine, a Swiss federal tribunal announced yesterday.
Guerrero appealed to the tribunal following a recent ruling by the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that saw him suspended for 14 months.
The tribunal, Switzerland’s highest court, effectively “suspended” the CAS ban and said: “Guerrero can now participate at the next World Cup.”
The decision was warmly welcomed by the Peruvian football federation (FPF), which had given Guerrero support in recent months in a bid to get him to Russia for their first World Cup appearance in 36 years.
“It’s a great joy, not only for the federation but for the whole of Peru,” the FPF said in a statement.
The FPF had launched Guerrero’s last-ditch appeal Wednesday “with the hope of seeing Paolo at the World Cup, that reflects the feeling of the FPF and the whole country,” according to its president Edwin Oviedo in a statement released in Lima.