The World Anti-Doping Agency has requested the appeal against the Essendon players be held in Switzerland.

It is understood WADA has requested the case be held outside Australia in part because some of the panel hearing the case will be international arbitrators. It has also been interpreted as a provocative move by WADA to seek to move the matters as far as possible from the AFL environment.

A decision on where the Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing will sit will only be made once a panel has been appointed by CAS and all interested parties have made submissions – most likely written submissions. Lawyers for the 34 current and former Essendon players will strongly object to the request.

The system for appointing the three person panel is that the players, WADA and CAS each nominate an arbitrator. WADA has nominated a Belgian senior counsel as its preferred arbitrator.

The CAS head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland, but the Oceania regional office is in Sydney. It was presumed an appeal would be held in Australia – most likely Sydney – because the players, lawyers, expert witnesses and interested parties are all in Australia and the alleged offences occurred here.

Neither the players' former counsel David Grace QC nor ASADA's lawyer Malcolm Hughes QC can represent their clients again at the CAS hearing as both men have acted as CAS arbitrators and CAS rules prohibit arbitrators from appearing as advocates before the court.

Hearing the case in Switzerland would raise obvious logistical problems for the players and other witnesses to attend to give evidence or follow the case. Matters of whether evidence would be given by video link would have to be decided.

Other matters such as whether the Court of Arbitration for Sport has court standing to compel witnesses could be another reason for pushing for the matter to be heard in Switzerland. The Victorian Supreme Court has already ruled that the doping hearing did not have the power to compel witness - Shane Charter, Stephen Dank and pharmacist Nima Alavi - to gve sworn evidence. The question arises from the WADA application as to whether there is more power in the Swiss jurisdiction for witnesses to be compelled to testify.

CAS decisions are binding but there is an appeal possible to the Swiss Federal Tribunal on a very limited number of grounds which according the CAS website would be "a lack of jurisdiction, violation of elementary procedural rules (e.g. violation of the right to a fair hearing) or incompatibility with public policy".

Essendon chairman Paul Little said at the time the appeal was announced that the club was surprised by the decision but everyone at the club wanted the matter resolved quickly.

"It's early days but I would've thought it probably could be heard reasonably quickly unless the club decides to, in some way, drag the process out. And I can assure you that's not what we want," he said.

The AFL was understood to be angry at WADA's decision to appeal the Essendon case and this decision to seek to have the case heard overseas will only further aggravate the league and the relationship with the world body.