The Court of Arbitration for Sport have ruled against Watford in their ongoing case against Spanish side Cádiz.
Cádiz were banned from signing players for two transfer windows by FIFA earlier this year after Watford complained about them signing defender Mamadou Mbaye.
The Hornets complained to the governing body that they had signed the youngster without an agreement with the Premier League club.
FIFA partially agreed with this, banning both Cádiz and the player and ordering both to pay compensation to Watford.
Cádiz and Mbaye disputed the sanction, insisting they had done nothing wrong and the transfer was completely legal.
They took their case to the Court of Arbitration to Sport, although it had been delayed as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak.
The court have now ruled on the case, though, with COPE reporting that they have ‘provisionally suspended’ the sanction, going in in Cádiz’s favour.
The report offers no further information than that, although Cádiz continue to argue their innocence in the whole case.
According to them they ‘validated’ the player’s file with FIFA’s transfer system and maintains that there is ‘dubious truthfulness’ in some of the claims made by Watford.
Whether this is the end of the matter, though, remains to be seen. This resolution by CAS appears to only be a temporary one, with Watford sure to continue arguing their case until the last.
