Salman Butt And Mohammad Asif Have Lost Appeals Against Their Bans From Cricket.

Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif have lost appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against their suspensions for spot-fixing.

In February 2011, Butt was handed a 10-year ban by the International Cricketing Council (ICC), with five years suspended, after he and his team mates Mohammad Amir and Asif were implicated in a fixing scandal.

Asif was banned for seven years, with two years suspended, while Amir received a five-year ban, which he chose not to contest.

Butt, 28, who captained Pakistan at the time, was named as the orchestrator of a plot to bowl deliberate no-balls in the Lord's Test against England in 2010.

And, in November of 2011, Butt, Asif and Amir were convicted and jailed on conspiracy charges relating to the spot-fixing, spending three to seven months in jail.

Lawyers acting for Butt and Asif argued their cases before a panel of judges at the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne, Switzerland in February of this year but it has now been announced that their appeals have been rejected.

Butt's legal adviser Amer Rahman said: "Salman and I are bitterly disappointed with the decision of the Court.

"Salman has been in a very dark place over the last few years and he was hoping that he would be successful in this appeal.

"We will not be giving up. In the coming days and weeks, we will be exploring every other available avenue."

The CAS released a statement which said: "Mr Asif requested the annulment of the ICC Tribunal's decision on mainly procedural grounds.

"However, the CAS panel found there was no evidence advanced by Mr Asif which clearly exculpated him and that his submissions did not break the chain of circumstantial evidence or in any way undermine the reasoning contained in the decision.

"For those reasons, the Panel was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr Asif was a party to the spot-fixing conspiracy.

"With respect to Mr Butt's appeal, he did not contest the liability findings of the ICC Tribunal but requested that the sanction be reduced to less than five years.

"However, the CAS Panel was not persuaded that the sanction imposed by the ICC Tribunal was disproportionate, nor that any of the mitigating factors advanced by Mr Butt qualified as exceptional circumstances."