By Andrew Warshaw
November 25 – Sepp Blatter claims FIFA’s ethics committee, which he himself set up, does not have the power to remove him as president.
Blatter is currently appealing against his provisional 90-day suspension but risks receiving a far graver ban now that the committee’s investigation into alleged financial mismanagement is complete.
Michel Platini’s lawyers have already revealed that the UEFA president and FIFA presidential candidate is facing a life ban over the SFr 2 million payment made to him from FIFA in 2011 that was signed off by Blatter.
The long delay in payment for work carried out several years earlier has yet to be fully explained and was apparently never formally submitted in the intervening years to FIFA’s finance department.
As a result of the gravity of the recommended sanction against Platini, whatever happened between him and Blatter is suddenly being widely interpreted as involving corruption.
It is assumed that Blatter faces similar charges which would rule him out of handing over to his successor on February 26. His spokesman Klaus Stoehlker said the 79-year-old had yet to be informed of his recommended sanction but that he was “deeply surprised” to learn of the severity of the punishment facing Platini.
Stoehlker says Blatter is now considering going above the head of German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert who will recommend sanctions sometime next month.
Stoehlker told Press Association Sport: “Mr Blatter was elected by the FIFA congress and only the congress can remove his power.”
It is understood, however, that there is no exemption in any regulatory documents of FIFA which would exclude the president. Besides, whether Blatter could also go over the head of the Court of Arbitration for Sport if it ultimately rules against him would be open to question as FIFA has signed up to CAS as the final authority on sports rulings.
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