ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons cap­tain John Camp­bell will no longer face a four-game sus­pen­sion from Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) for his part in last year’s CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup fi­nal de­ba­cle, fol­low­ing a rul­ing by CWI’s Dis­ci­pli­nary Tri­bunal on Fri­day.

Camp­bell, who ad­mit­ted wrong­do­ing, was sus­pend­ed for four games last De­cem­ber by CWI af­ter be­ing hand­ed Lev­el 3 charges along with Bar­ba­dos Pride cap­tain Ray­mon Reifer by match ref­er­ee Leon King, for fail­ing to be present for the coin toss in the rain-af­fect­ed fi­nal on No­vem­ber 23, 2024.

How­ev­er, less than 24 hours af­ter it was re­port­ed that Reifer’s charges had been dropped fol­low­ing sub­mis­sions from his le­gal team, CWI has with­drawn the dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against Camp­bell.

The in­de­pen­dent pan­el chaired by Jus­tice Patrick Thomp­son Jr and in­clud­ed mem­bers Jus­tice Dale Sta­ple, Madame Jus­tice Jacque­line Cor­nelius-Thorne, Michael Find­lay and Sylvester Joseph, found that there were pro­ce­dur­al flaws.

“CWI has an­nounced that, fol­low­ing a re­cent meet­ing of the Code of Con­duct and Dis­ci­pli­nary Tri­bunal on Fri­day, 04 April 2025, the four-match sus­pen­sion pre­vi­ous­ly im­posed on Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons cap­tain John Camp­bell has been of­fi­cial­ly with­drawn,” it said in a state­ment.

“The Tri­bunal was con­vened to hear the case in­volv­ing Bar­ba­dos Pride cap­tain Ray­mon Reifer, in re­spect of a charge re­lat­ing to his con­duct at the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 fi­nal on 23 No­vem­ber 2024.

“Dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings, the Tri­bunal took the view that the pro­ce­dure of bring­ing the charge was flawed and the mat­ter, there­fore, could not be heard. While the mat­ter in­volv­ing Camp­bell was not be­fore the Tri­bunal, the is­sues raised dur­ing Reifer’s hear­ing in­formed CWI’s de­ci­sion to with­draw the charges against Camp­bell.

“It is im­por­tant to note, the view is not per­tain­ing to the mer­it of the charge, but rather the process of the charge be­ing laid.

“In light of the Tri­bunal’s find­ings, CWI re­spects the in­de­pen­dent pan­el’s po­si­tion and has ac­cord­ing­ly re­scind­ed the four-match sus­pen­sion ini­tial­ly hand­ed down to Mr. Camp­bell. How­ev­er, it is im­por­tant to note that his ad­mis­sion of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and for­mal apol­o­gy re­main on record,” the state­ment fur­ther added.

How­ev­er, the Tri­bunal made it clear that it did not is­sue any rul­ing on the mat­ter of prize mon­ey or match fees aris­ing from the fi­nal.

As a re­sult, CWI said it main­tained its pre­vi­ous po­si­tion and would with­hold all dis­burse­ments to both teams due to the fi­nal match not tak­ing place.

CWI Di­rec­tor of Crick­et, Miles Bas­combe said democ­ra­cy had pre­vailed yet again.

“We ac­knowl­edge the Tri­bunal’s ob­ser­va­tions and re­spect their role in en­sur­ing pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness. While Mr. Camp­bell’s ex­pres­sion of re­morse and ad­mis­sion has been ac­cept­ed, we rec­og­nize the con­cerns raised dur­ing Reifer’s hear­ing re­gard­ing the over­all process and have de­cid­ed to with­draw the sus­pen­sion,” Bas­combe said.

“That said, this does not ab­solve in­di­vid­u­als of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty where there have been se­ri­ous breach­es.

“No rul­ing has been made to de­clare a win­ner or over­turn any match out­come—this is pure­ly a mat­ter of ad­dress­ing pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness. Nei­ther has any­one been found guilty nor in­no­cent of charges. Our com­mit­ment to dis­ci­pline, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and the in­tegri­ty of the game re­mains un­wa­ver­ing,” he added.

As a re­sult of the Tri­bunal’s find­ings and in the in­ter­est of con­sis­ten­cy, CWI will not pur­sue fur­ther dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against Ray­mon Reifer at this stage re­gard­ing his in­di­vid­ual con­duct in the fi­nal.

(CMC)