FIFA committee set to hear Platini’s appeal against eight-year ban

MICHEL PLATINI’S appeal against his eight-year ban from all football-related activity will be heard today.

Platini was banned in December over a “disloyal payment” of £1.3 million made to him in 2011 which had been signed off by then FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Blatter is also appealing against his own eight-year ban, with his case to be heard tomorrow.

If Platini fails to have the sanction over turned by FIFA’s appeals committee, it is likely he would take his fight to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) with Blatter poised to do the same.

UEFA stated last month that it will not hold an election for its presidency until Platini’s appeals process has been exhausted. The FIFA appeals committee, which is chaired by Larry Mussenden, the president of the Bermuda Football Association, has the power to reduce, increase or overturn the ban imposed in December. As well as the ban, Platini was fined 80,000 Swiss francs (around £54,000) by the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee after being found guilty of breaching the world governing body’s code of ethics.

The ethics committee’s investigatory chamber has also confirmed that it is appealing against the sanctions imposed on Platini and Blatter on the grounds that they are too lenient. The charges found proven included offering and accepting gifts, conflict of interest, and violating their fiduciary duty to FIFA.

Both Platini and Blatter said the payment was made after a verbal agreement between the pair when the Frenchman worked for Blatter from 1998 to 2002, though it was not paid until nine years later. That explanation was rejected as “not convincing” by the committee.

Platini had at one stage been favourite to succeed Blatter as FIFA president but the opening of ethics proceedings against him and subsequent ban ended any chance of that happening.

FIFA will hold an election for a new president on February 26. The candidates are Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino of Switzerland, Jordan Football Association president Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, former FIFA executive Jerome Champagne of France and South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale.

On Friday, FIFA’s ethics committee banned the governing body’s former secretary general Jerome Valcke for 12 years for multiple breaches of the code of ethics.